Pizza Chili

Pizza. Chili.  Yes, that's two perfect dinner smooshed together to make a perfect meal.  A perfect Chili with lots of pizza flavor.  I made this when we had friends over and it was gobbled up with just enough left over for Dave to have lunch the next day.  We love a good chili and this one will certainly be in our regular chili rotation.  The mozzarella on top gets gooey and melty, just like a good piece of pizza.  I served it up with beer bread, which went perfectly, but any sort of crusty bread would work.

I've been eying this recipe from Stephanie over at Crockpot 365 for quite some time and finally decided to whip it up.  I'm not normally a fan of cooking before I toss things into the crock pot (hello, that's the whole point of the crock pot), but this just sounded too good and I certainly didn't want all the extra grease from the ground meat invading the perfect flavors in this chili.  The green pepper played a great role in building the pizza flavor, and cutting the pepperoni made sure I had a piece in every bite.  And since I happened to have Penzey's Pizza Sprinkle, I subbed that for the Italian seasoning which just amped it up all together.  If you love pizza and chili as much as we do, you'll adore this chili, precooking and all.

Pizza Chili

Ingredients

1 pound lean ground beef
15 ounces pinto beans, undrained
14.5 ounces Italian stewed tomatoes
14 ounce pizza sauce
1 green pepper, seeded and diced
1 teaspoon pizza sprinkle or Italian seasoning
25 pepperoni slices
1 cup water
shredded mozzarella, for garnish

In a skillet over medium high heat, brown meat, then drain off excess fat (Note: I put the meat in a fine mesh strainer and rinsed off the excess grease.)

Transfer meat to a 6 quart crock pot and add beans, tomatoes, pizza sauce, and seasoning.  Stir together.

Chop or quarter pepperoni and add to crock pot with water and stir to combine.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Divide into bowls and garnish with shredded mozzarella.

Makes 6 servings.

Happy Baking,
The Cookie Princess

Printer Friendly Recipe