Big-batch recipe · Keto
Ground beef and cheese chili, no beans
8 portions, about 42 g of protein in each. 20 minutes of hands-on work and 55 min of cooking.
Where it sits in the week
What this one is for
On the keto track this is a Sunday cook — the long session, which covers Monday to Wednesday. Cooked once, portioned hot, and eaten across the days that session covers.
Two portions is about 84 g of protein — our own arithmetic on the figure above, not a separate measurement. Protein targets on this site are computed against goal weight or lean mass rather than scale weight, which is the whole of Real Fuel.
Part of the keto meal plan, cooked in the two-session prep schedule.
What goes in
- 3 lb ground beef, 80/20
- 1 lb bacon or pancetta, diced
- 2 cans (14 oz) chopped tomatoes
- 2 peppers, 2 onions, 8 cloves garlic
- 3 tbsp chilli powder, 2 tbsp cumin, 1 tbsp oregano
- 2 cups beef stock, 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 cups grated cheddar and sour cream, to serve
How
- Render the bacon first, then brown the beef in the fat in two batches. One crowded batch steams and you lose the crust.
- Onion, pepper and garlic into the same pan, 8 minutes. Paste and spices, 90 seconds.
- Tomatoes and stock in, simmer 45 minutes uncovered until thick.
- Cheese and sour cream at the bowl, not in the pot. Dairy cooked into it splits on the reheat.
Keeping it: Fridge 4 days, freezer 3 months. The fat sets on top in the fridge; stir it back in rather than pouring it off, because it is most of the calories.
Nothing on this page is medical advice. It is a plan written for general strength training in healthy adults, and any condition or medication you are managing outranks it.
Doing it cheaper
Swaps that apply to this one
From the keto track's budget version, filtered to the ingredient this recipe actually uses.
| Instead of | Use | Why it is worth it |
|---|---|---|
| Ground beef every day | Eggs, whole chicken, pork shoulder | A whole chicken at $2.01 a pound is roughly four times the protein per dollar of ground beef. |
The prices behind these swaps, with sources, are in the protein-per-dollar table.
The rest of the keto week
3 more big-batch recipes on this track, plus the seven-day plan they feed.