Chili is a delicious fall and winter staple in our house. I have a lot of chili recipes but this healthy turkey chili from Eat Yourself Skinny is easily our favorite. Full of protein and peppers and onions. It has the perfect blend of seasonings. If you don’t like any spice you might cut the cayenne pepper and hot sauce. There are jalapeno in this recipe but I don’t find they add much spice (as long as you leave out ALL of the seeds!) – just lots of yummy flavor! I made this for my family as is (including the hot sauce and cayenne) and my mom (who can’t eat spice at all) loved it!
Chili Powder
One of the most important ingredients in any chili is chili powder. I recommend doing your research and getting a good brand that you can buy in bulk. This is the chili powder I use and it’s fantastic, a great price and lasts a really long time! Which is great in our house because we go through A LOT of chili powder!
Chili Ingredients
Saute onion and ground meat until brown
Add all other ingredients to the dutch oven after sauteing the onions and browning the ground meat
Simmer for an hour then enjoy. Even better the next day!!
You can add other vegetables, beans or meat (including bacon!) to this chili. This healthy turkey chili is extremely versatile! I’ve made this using ground beef and chicken as well and both turned out wonderful! I’ve never had to drain the meat after browning turkey or chicken for this recipe but even with low-fat beef I needed to drain a bit off. I prefer using my dutch oven but you could throw all of this in a slow cooker for the day (brown meat first then add all the ingredients into the slow cooker).
This healthy turkey chili has the perfect blend of sweet and spicy. We love eating this with a not-quite-so-healthy batch of beer bread. You’ll add some calories and carbs to this meal but I highly recommend it if you are super hungry. Or your tummy needs something extra. 🙂
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
- 2 lbs ground turkey (I've also used ground beef and chicken and it was great!)
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 28 oz can crushed tomatoes, no salt added
- 15 oz can diced tomatoes, no salt added (do not drain)
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- ½ tsp hot sauce
- 15 oz can kidney beans (or black beans), drain and rinsed, no salt added
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 2 jalapenos, chopped (no seeds if you do not want it spicy!)
- 1.5 tsp sea salt
- 1 pinch pepper
- 1 packet stevia
- 3 tbsp chili powder
- 2 tsp oregano
- ⅛ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
- Drizzle olive oil in a large pot. Saute onion and garlic until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add ground turkey and cook until crumbled and brown. Drain excess liquid if needed (when I use turkey or chicken I never need to drain).
- Add all the rest of the ingredients and cook on medium/low for an hour.