Meatless Monday: Three Bean Chili

One of the ways I know we can save money is by bulk cooking. I like to plan our dinners in advance so I know exactly what we need when we go grocery shopping, which helps us to stay within our grocery budget and keeps us from buying hot cheetoes and 3 gallons of rocky road ice cream. Usually I do most of the cooking, while Mr. M&M will clean up, so I typically end up deciding what I want to cook that week and we go from there. One of our favorite meals is bean chili. It’s perfect for cold winter months, super filling, easy to make, and inexpensive.

To make it more interesting we like to top ours with avocado, green onion, and yogurt (instead of sour cream – too heavy for us). The chili also great served with tortilla chips and a splash of hot sauce!

Recipe for 3 bean chili – Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 onion, diced

1 1/2 cups diced mushrooms

2 tablespoons oil (olive or vegetable is fine)

1 14 oz can black beans drained & rinsed

1 14 oz can cannellini beans drained & rinsed

1 14 oz can red kidney beans drained & rinsed

1/2 cup frozen corn

1 packet of taco seasoning (or make your own here)

1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes

1-2 cups of water

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat, add onions and cook until translucent. Once the onions have sweated a bit you can add the mushrooms and cook until soft.

2. Add beans to onion and mushroom mix along with taco seasoning. Depending on how spicy you like your chili you can add more or less taco seasoning. Mix well and let cook for 2-3 minutes.

3. Once mixture is heated through add diced tomatoes, water and corn. Simmer for at least 20 minutes before serving.

This recipe is easy to scale up – just double the amount of all ingredients. It’s also easy to freeze and lasts us at least for 2 nights, even more if we don’t eat multiple bowls. We enjoy this served with cornbread muffins (Jiffy mix is about $1.60) or tortilla chips.