Ingredients
2 Red or white onions – 15p
2–3 Cloves of garlic – 5p – 25p a bulb
1 Pepper – 18p 1/5 of a 90p pack
500g Mince beef £1.49
400g Tin of tomatoes 28p
400g Red kidney beans 33p
2 tbsp Tomato purée 5p – 27p a tube
1 Beef stock cube 11p – £1.30 a box
1 tsp Smoked paprika 5p – 90p a jar
1 tsp (Hot or mild) chilli powder 5p – 90p a jar
1 tsp Cumin 5p – 90p a jar
Cheese or sour cream to serve
About £7 to buy the ingredients
About £2.79 per portion
Maris piper potatoes – £1.19 a bag – 30p a portion
Serves 4
It’s important to remember cooking at home is a good investment, the first time you buy the ingredients it might cost you about £7 but the next time you make it you could spend as little as £1.77 in the shops.
This rich chilli con carne recipe is really tasty and takes minimal effort to create. It can be enjoyed in many different ways, today I am showing you my favourite, topped upon home-made oven chips. It goes great with rice, nacho’s, or inside a burrito too.
If you’d like to make the “chilli cheese fries” cut up 2-3 medium to large potatoes per person into 1cm square chips and place them into an oven tray allowing space between them. You don’t need to peel them just make sure there are no roots on them and they are clean. Season well with salt and pepper, ½ tsp of smoked paprika, ½ tsp of ginger powder and ½ tsp of cayenne pepper and a splash of oil per portion. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour until soft on 180°C. This will also give you plenty of time to cook the chilli. If you’d like to make any other variety start from step one.
Step one
Heat up a saucepan and brown off the mince making sure to skim off the fat as it rises to the top, this can take a couple of minutes. Once cooked through remove from the pan and set aside.
Step two
Add some oil in a saucepan and add the onion cut into small 1cm cubes. Cook these off for 5 minutes until soft.
Step three
Cut the pepper into bite size chunks and add them to the onions, cook till soft.
Step four
Add the mince along with the smoked paprika, chilli powder and cumin. Crumble a stock cube into 300ml of boiling water and dissolve. Add to the mince mixture along with the tomatoes and tomato paste, leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Chilli and rice
If you are not having home-made chips with the chilli this is about the time when you’d get your rice on. Place ½ a cup of rice per person in a saucepan and “rinse” with water to allow for most of the starch to be removed, this allows for less sticky rice with a better texture. Drain the rice completely and put 1 cup of water in per person and place the rice on medium to low heat for 10-12 minutes.
Cooking rice to the perfect consistency is very difficult, if you can catch the rice with very minimal water left turn the rice off and leave the lid on and just let the rice steam its self for a couple of minutes. Perfect rice should not be clumpy and should fall as individual grains. Once you feel your rice is cooked remove from the heat and serve.
Chilli cheese fries
Remove the chips from the oven and place on a plate, add generous helpings of chilli on top of the chips. Cheese to serve if wanted.
Chilli nacho’s
Great snack or meal if that’s what you choose. Simply top the chilli upon a bowl of nachos, warmed or straight from the bag, serve with sour cream, guacamole or cheese. If your melting cheese, I would advise heating the nachos in the oven as opposed to the microwave to keep them crisp.
Chilli burrito
Burritos are usually tortilla wraps filled with rice, chilli, sour cream, guacamole and cheese.
