Check out these favorite gameday chili recipes:

Instant Pot Pinto Bean Chili

This recipe’s easy to customize using ground beef, turkey or chicken. Pro tip: Quick soaking the pinto beans means your chili will cook faster, and the beans will be more uniformly tender.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili

From Taste of the South magazine, this easy slow cooker recipe highlights a great combo of vegetarian flavors and spices, including smoky chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and Hatch green chiles.

Creole-Style Pork and Red Bean Chili

Featuring spicy pork sausage (with the optional addition of pork tenderloin, for a milder flavor), this recipe is little more time-intensive but totally worth the wait! It’s the perfect chili for Louisiana football fans.

Old Fashioned Chili with Beans

Made with ground beef, our signature red kidney beans, fire-roasted tomatoes, and a slew of spices, this classic chili recipe will soon become a new favorite.

Slow Cooker White Bean & Chicken Chili

Versatile, creamy, and perfectly seasoned, you’ll love this chili for its big flavor. Throw it in the slow cooker, or make the stovetop version – whatever works best for you.

A Modern Twist on a Beloved Tradition.

Here in New Orleans, many of us observe the weekly tradition of cooking red beans and rice on Mondays. The traditional method takes several hours to cook from scratch on the stovetop (assuming you’ve not soaked them… ).  Most of today’s modern, busy workers leave their homes early on weekday mornings making that four hour stovetop cook time pretty unrealistic. What to do? If you love red beans but haven’t the time to cook them, meet your new best friend: the slow cooker. With just a little ahead-of-time preparation, you can have red beans not long after you get home. How’s that for convenience?

Not only is the consumption of red beans a big deal here in New Orleans, but the ritual of preparation is also a time honored tradition. Slowly chopping the trinity can be the closest thing to a meditative experience as you’re likely to find in the kitchen. However, if you don’t have the time, several companies here in Southeast Louisiana figured that out – so you can now find pre-chopped trinity in most, if not all, grocery store refrigerated produce sections.  Today’s busy home cook doesn’t always have the time for a lot of prep-work, especially when it’s just as cost effective to use the pre-chopped version.

Advantages of Cooking Red Beans in a Slow Cooker Abound

Let’s loop back to the slow cooker. Clearly, advantages abound here. Not only are slow cookers convenient and easy to use, they’re also a major time-saving device. Plus they eliminate the need for soaking, especially when you’re cooking them low and slow, as does the recipe presented here. While you’re busy at work all day, the slow cooker is busy, too – it’s turning the red beans, smoked sausage, and trinity into a delicious meal for you. When you arrive home, your beans are ready. Simply throw on a pot of rice and slice a few green onions, and you’re all set! This is so easy that a child could do it. In fact, cooking red beans in the slow cooker is a great way for you and your kids to bond over meal preparation, and it also provides a convenient way for you to pass the red beans and rice tradition on to them. While cooking traditions persist, modern day time crunches call for modern day solutions. The slow cooker provides that answer.

Embracing slow cooking allows you to cook traditional meals like red beans more often. Between using it as family bonding time and having Mondays be an easy dinner night, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start this tradition earlier. Red beans also make great leftovers for lunches during the week or they can be frozen to eat later, especially on those weeks when you don’t even have the time to use the slow cooker. You know those weeks. The versatility and storability of red beans makes them an ideal weekly tradition.  Slow cooking your red beans is also ideal for parade season and parties for the big game – you can enjoy the festivities while the beans are cooking, and serve directly from the slow cooker so that everyone can enjoy a piping hot bowl of New Orleans most beloved dishes.

SLOW COOKER RED BEANS & RICE

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 hours (low) or 4 hours (high)

2 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil
1 quart pre-chopped trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper)
1 pound smoked sausage, each link quartered length-wise then cut 1/2″ thick
7 cups water (low setting) or 6 cups water (high setting)
1 (1-pound) package Camellia Brand Red Kidney Beans
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onion
Hot sauce, to taste
Salt and black pepper, to taste
6 cups cooked white or brown rice

Directions:

1. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.
2. Add the trinity, stir well, and cook until vegetables start to soften, about 3-5 minutes. Stir occasionally to ensure that the vegetables don’t stick.
3. Add the smoked sausage, stir well, and continue to cook until sausage is browned and vegetables are tender, about 5-7 minutes. Continue to stir occasionally to make sure trinity and sausage aren’t sticking.
4. Once done, remove the skillet from heat and transfer the contents to a slower cooker.
5. Add the water and red beans along with garlic powder, onion powder, bay leaves, and dried thyme. Stir well and place cover on the slow cooker.
6. Set the slow cooker on low for 10 hours (or 4 hours on high setting). Stir occasionally.
7. Before serving, stir in thinly sliced green onions and the desired amounts of salt and black pepper. Serve over rice and with hot sauce.

Notes:

• If you cannot find pre-chopped trinity in your local grocery store, substitute 2 cups of chopped onions, 1 cup of chopped celery, and 1 cup of chopped bell pepper.
• Steps 1 through 3 can be done the day ahead of time, if needed. Store the cooked vegetable and sausage mixture in an air-tight container in the refrigerator then just pick up on Step 4 when you’re ready to add everything to the slow cooker.
• If you’re strapped for time, skip Steps 1 through 4. Sauteing the trinity and the sausage will add a depth of flavor, but it’s not a requirement. If you skip over to Step 5, add the raw vegetables and sausage to the slow cooker with everything else. Omit the vegetable oil.
• Depending on your beans and your slow cooker, the beans may have more water than you’re used to on the stove. The beans will thicken upon standing. Mash some of the beans on the side of the slow cooker crock if you prefer a creamier style of beans.
• The beans can stay in the slow cooker for another couple of hours on the “Warm” setting on the slow cooker. Beans will continue to thicken as they warm longer.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

There are so many good reasons to make a big batch of hearty chili during the cooler months of fall. Football-watching parties, tailgating, block parties, family get-togethers, and potlucks — just to name a few. Chili is one-pot comfort food at its finest, feeds a crowd, and makes a great topping for everything from nachos and baked potatoes to pasta and hot dogs. When you bulk it up with healthy bean protein and offer lots of delicious toppings, chili is a complete meal in a bowl.

Our new chili recipes feature something for everyone: Beef & Black Bean Chili, White Bean & Chicken Chili, and 3-Bean Vegetarian Chili. The spice levels can be easily adjusted to suit your taste, there’s no need to cook the beans in advance, and we’ve got both stovetop and slow cooker versions of each recipe. Talk about easy entertaining! Oh, and don’t pass up our Loaded Nachos — a cheesy, must-have appetizer for any football gathering — made with a heaping helping of Beef & Black Bean Chili.

Beef & Black Bean Chili

This hearty chili is certain to become a game day favorite. Beef & Black Bean Chili calls for ground beef, but you can lighten things up by using sirloin or substituting ground turkey. With black beans and four different kinds of chilies — poblanos, jalapeno, chipotle powder, and fire-roasted green chilies — there’s a depth of flavor that’ll keep folks coming back for more. (Don’t be alarmed if you haven’t tried these chilies before. Just taste as you go to get the level of heat you like.) On a scale of 1-5, the spice level of the recipe as it’s written is a 3. Top with shredded cheddar, sour cream, and chopped green onions, and enjoy.

Get the Stovetop Beef & Black Bean Chili recipe.

Get the Slow Cooker Beef & Black Bean Chili recipe.

White Bean & Chicken Chili

Smooth yet robust flavors come together in this creamy White Bean & Chicken Chili. Mild enough to please everyone but substantial enough to satisfy, this recipe features smoked Hatch chilies (you can substitute roasted poblano chilies), cannellini beans, chicken breasts or thighs, smoked paprika, and a combo of cornmeal and cream that adds a super-velvety finish at the end of cooking. Top with shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, and chopped fresh cilantro, and watch it get eaten up by all. On a scale of 1-5, the spice level of this recipe is a 2.

Get the Stovetop White Bean & Chicken Chili recipe.

Get the Slow Cooker White Bean & Chicken Chili recipe.

3-Bean Vegetarian Chili

Meat? They’ll never miss it. This 3-Bean Vegetarian Chili’s appealing flavor comes from smoked Hatch chilies (you can substitute roasted poblano chilies), a bottle of pale ale beer, red kidneys, cannellinis, black beans, and smoked paprika. The beer tends to add a warm maltiness, and the addition of extra olive oil at the end of cooking adds creaminess. Folks will want to dig in, for sure. On a scale of 1-5, the spice level in this chili is a 3.

Get the Stovetop 3-Bean Vegetarian Chili recipe.

Get the Slow Cooker 3-Bean Vegetarian Chili recipe.

Loaded Nachos

So easy and so good! Simply top tortilla chips with Beef & Black Bean Chili and plenty of shredded cheese. Stick ’em under the broiler, and when the cheese is all melted and gooey, sprinkle generously with halved grape tomatoes, chopped cilantro, chopped green onions, and diced avocados. Add a few generous dollops of sour cream so that nachos can be pulled apart and dipped in for extra creamy flavor. But watch out — before you know it, they’ll be gobbled up, and you’ll be making another batch.

Get the Loaded Nachos recipe.