Slow Cooker Beef Chili with Beans

This dump-and-go slow cooker beef chili recipe is the perfect weeknight dinner! Make a big batch of chili with ground beef, veggies, and pinto beans to enjoy as a few hearty meals to warm up from the cold weather.

Hey y’all! The holidays are right around the corner, which means the winter months are coming! If there’s one thing I crave when the weather cools, it’s warm and savory comfort food. And nothing helps warm your bones like a big ol’ pot of homemade beef chili with beans!

Quick and Easy Slow Cooker Chili Recipe

To make everything easy, this beef chili is made in the crockpot. While it’s cooking, you have plenty of time to get other things done, like clean the house or heck, watch TV with your family! This hands-off recipe is perfect for weeknight dinners or slow and cozy weekends, especially when the weather starts to get chilly and gloomy. Once the chili is done, you simply toss on your favorite toppings and dig in!

This slow cooker beef chili is extra simple for a few key reasons:

• It’s a dump-and-go recipe. You just toss everything into your slow cooker (yes, even the raw meat!) and let it cook until it’s full of warm and savory flavor.
• It’s made with dried pinto beans. You don’t have to soak the beans, and you don’t want to worry about spending extra money on canned chili beans.
• It’s super budget-friendly. We use only simple ingredients and include whatever vegetables you have on hand.
• It feeds a crowd. This hearty chili can feed 8-10 people, and you can easily double the recipe. It’s freezer-friendly too!

This easy beef chili recipe is one of my favorite slow cooker meals, and I hope it will become one of yours too! Let’s get into the ingredients.

Ingredients for Slow Cooker Beef Chili with Beans

One of the many things I love about this recipe is that you can use whatever you have in your fridge at the time! Have some peppers that are on the way out? Toss ‘em in! Some carrots at the bottom of the vegetable drawer from that one recipe you made weeks ago? Great, perfect for chili! Don’t love some of the veggies on my ingredients list? Leave ‘em out!

Be sure to scroll on down to the recipe card at the end of the post to find the complete ingredient list. Here’s everything I use to make my easy Crockpot chili recipe:

• Ground Beef: because we’re tossing the raw meat into the pot to cook with everything else, I like to use a nice, lean ground beef so there’s less excess fat in the chili.
• Dried Pinto Beans: I almost always have dried beans on hand, so it’s way more convenient and cost-effective for me to use them over canned.
• Diced Tomatoes & Tomato Sauce: adding these two ingredients gives the chili a hearty, earthy flavor.
• Chicken Broth: the base of the chili to cook all of your ingredients. You could also use beef broth if you prefer!
• Vegetables: in this chili recipe, I use bell pepper, onions, garlic, and celery. For onions, I prefer yellow, but white or even red onions are great options too.
• Seasonings: I use chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, and an all-purpose salt-free seasoning.

How to Make Slow Cooker Beef Chili with Dried Beans

This is a true dump-and-go recipe, making it perfect for busy dinner nights! Want to watch how I make this recipe? Watch my video tutorial below! Be sure to subscribe to I Heart Recipes on YouTube. I share easy-to-follow recipe videos, life updates, and more with all my cousins. I even have a playlist of slow cooker dinners for you to try!

Here’s how to make this super-easy Crockpot chili recipe:

1. Toss your ground beef into the slow cooker. Break it up into chunks before adding everything else.
2. Add the remaining ingredients.
3. Set your slow cooker to HIGH and cook the chili for 3-4 hours, or on LOW for 6-8 hours.

That’s it, y’all! Three easy steps – the hardest part is prepping and chopping all your veggies. I promised you an easy chili recipe, didn’t I?!

FAQs, Ingredient Swaps, and Tips for Making Slow Cooker Beef Chili

When it comes to ingredients for beef chili, there’s a lot of wiggle room! Here are some notes and questions about ingredients for your chili!

• If you like spicy chili, you can easily add a kick to this recipe. Add jalapenos, green chilis, serrano peppers, habanero peppers, or any other kind of spicy pepper. You could also include red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper in the chili seasoning.
• Speaking of seasoning, you can definitely cheat and use a chili seasoning packet! They’re easy, cheap, and you don’t have to worry about having all kinds of spices on hand.
• If you don’t have tomato sauce, you can use tomato paste instead! This will actually make your chili a little thicker since you’re using less liquid.
• Leftover chili is even better the next day, when all those flavors have had time to marry together. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

What other kinds of meat can I use in slow cooker chili?

If you don’t eat ground beef, you can use any other kind of ground meat, including ground turkey or ground chicken. You can also make this recipe with stew meat, chuck roast, or even brisket. Don’t eat meat? Make it a vegetarian chili by leaving out the meat entirely. You can add more beans for protein, or a meat alternative like plant-based ground beef crumbles or Impossible Beef.

What other veggies go well in slow cooker beef chili?

Carrots are a good addition. Not only do they add just a little sweetness, but they also make the chili less acidic from all the tomatoes. Sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and corn are also good options.

Which kinds of beans are best for slow cooker chili?

The reason I make my slow cooker chili with dried beans is that they hold up better to slow cooking than canned beans! Canned beans are already cooked. Toss them in a slow cooker for 4 hours and you’ll have mush, not beans! If you prefer to use canned beans, toss them in towards the end of the cooking time – maybe 15-20 minutes before your chili is ready.

As for what kind of dried beans you can use in chili, it’s whatever you prefer! Kidney beans, black beans, and pinto beans are the most popular kinds. White beans are fine too, or even a mix! Before I tossed the beans into the slow cooker, I made sure to sort through them (getting rid of any pebbles and rotten beans) and rinsed them with cool water.

What are the best toppings for slow cooker beef chili?

My friends, whatever you like! The classics are sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese (always freshly shredded!), and maybe some green onions. For some crunch, add oyster crackers, saltine crackers, or corn chips (like Fritos). Add a few shakes of your favorite hot sauce for some heat.

More Easy Slow Cooker Dinners from I Heart Recipes

If you loved this homemade slow cooker beef chili recipe, let me know in the comments! What’s your favorite way to make chili? If you prefer stovetop chili, try my three-meat chili recipe or my simple chunky chili recipe. For more slow cooker dinners, add these to your menu!

• Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken Soup
• Slow Cooker Chicken Dinner
• Slow Cooker Beef Barley Soup
• Slow Cooker Beef Short Ribs
• Slow Cooker Smothered Roast
• Slow Cooked Oxtail Stew Recipe

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