Megan Guzman, Opinions Editor 

During the winter months, I often crave warm, comforting meals that are both satiating and delicious. However, as a busy graduate student with four jobs, I also need to prep my meals to ensure I’m getting enough nutrition throughout the week. As the possibility of snow lingers this Wednesday, I decided to make my favorite winter staple: Chili. 

Chili con carne, shortened to chili, is the most versatile and customizable meal you can make on a budget, especially since most of the ingredients are canned. Consisting of beans, meat, tomatoes, and other vegetables (i.e. onions, peppers, corn), chili is incredibly nutritious and can leave you full and energized for hours. Because it’s a stew, chili takes very little time to prepare, only about 10 minutes. This makes chili the perfect meal for students with packed schedules and limited resources.  

Chil con carne, like many dishes in the Americas, was borne out of colonization. Aztec chili sauces melded with European livestock to create chili con carne, first mentioned in a book about the Mexican American War. There is debate as to whether chili is a Mexican, Texan, or New Mexican dish, as food historians and locals disagree where the dish was first created. However, Native Americans in the region now known as Texas, Mexico, and New Mexico ate meat, like wild turkey, lobster, and venison, stewed in pepper sauce long before colonial occupation. Thus, chili has been an easy, affordable staple for hundreds of years. 

Chili is also wildly customizable. Depending on your preference, you can add any number of beans to your pot, including pinto beans, black beans, or kidney beans. Chili meats also vary widely and can include venison, turkey, chicken, or the most popular chili meat, beef. Chili can vary in spice level, too, depending on the peppers you choose to add, with bell peppers adding a sweet, mild flavor, or habanero and jalapeño kicking up the spice. The beans and meat create a macronutrient party, with carbs and protein from the beans and protein and fat from the meat. Micronutrients from the tomato, onion, and peppers round out the nutrient content. This makes chili a complete meal, dietician approved. 

I hope this article has convinced you to make chili this week, especially before it snows. Below is my recipe for chili as a starting point, but remember, you can modify it to your taste. 

Recipe for Chili con carne 

Makes 4 servings 

Olive oil (for browning the turkey) 

1.2lbs 93/7 ground turkey 

½ white onion, diced 

1 can of diced tomatoes (do NOT drain) 

1 can of kidney beans (do NOT drain) 

1 small can of tomato sauce 

1 packet of hot chili seasoning from Aldi 

½ cup frozen corn 

(Optional) shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro 

Instructions: 

1. Put a little oil in a pan. Brown the ground turkey until there is no pink left. 

2. Remove the turkey from the pan. Sauté the onion in the pan until translucent. 

3. Put browned turkey, onion, tomato sauce, tomatoes, beans, seasoning, and corn into a slow cooker. Set on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. (If you don’t have a slow cooker, put ingredients in a pot and simmer for at least 15 minutes. The longer it cooks, the better it tastes) 

4. Serve in a bowl with toppings of your choice. Enjoy!