Eats
Slow Cooker Odyssey: Strap on the Feed Bag!
It’s birthday season at my house, which means I’m scrambling to find recipes to feed lots of children. All evidence to the contrary, they cannot live on pizza delivery alone.
When I was young, my parents refused to order pizza delivery. I think it’s because Dad couldn’t bear to pay someone to do something he could do himself. Since he was more than capable of transporting an 18-inch-square cardboard box, kids dining at my house endured lots of frozen circles topped with something that resembled cheese, except in its refusal to melt or bubble.
My birthday parties were different. Still no pizza delivery, but Mom always elevated the cuisine in some memorable way. One year, she commissioned an R-rated baker to design a “boob cake” shaped like a voluptuous polka-dot bikini, to celebrate puberty at my thirteenth-birthday swim party. (If only I could find that baker’s phone number today; I’d love to see her cakey take on perimenopause.)
An Upgrade from Boob Cake
Then there was the birthday swim party when Mom served Chili in a Bag. People are still talking about it. Also known as Taco in a Bag, Frito Pie or Walking Taco, Chili in a Bag is practically ubiquitous these days, particularly on menus that skew toward irony. But back then, it was positively zany to ladle warm chili into a small bag of corn chips, top with taco accoutrements, and eat it straight from the disposable pouch.
Before you ask about the risks associated with BPAs, toxic glue or yellow and red ink leaching into the food, let me disclaim that it was the early ’80s. Everyone was more concerned with stagflation and nukes than with free radicals, so the subject never came up.
I do, however, remember heated debate about whether to tear the top of the chip bag apart and serve upright, or to snip the bag on the crease and serve on its side. For the record, the latter method works better; it creates a wider “bowl,” and you don’t have to dig as far to reach the chips.
Choose Your Chips and Get Cooking
On the matter of corn chips, I prefer Fritos. But Doritos, Tostitos and other -itos will get the job done, especially if you smash them down to spoon-size.
As for the chili, that’s what brings the Slow Cooker Odyssey to this Island of Summer Birthday Nostalgia in the first place. Let’s make chili.
There are as many chili manifestos out there as there are barbecue creeds, so let me open by saying I’m not remotely chili-dogmatic, except that my family renounces beans and is not particularly heat-tolerant. Furthermore, I generally cook using what’s on hand, so my chili varies batch to batch, depending on whether I have tomatoes that are diced, pureed or fresh; bell peppers or green chilis; or tomatillos of any kind. I’m stingy with oregano and liberal with paprika, or vice versa. I am pro-cinnamon and cocoa-curious. I might add coffee, beer or beef broth, if I need some extra liquid.
I can’t stress enough the loosey-goosey nature of chili manufacturing at my house, especially when it’s going into a bag of chips and under a blanket of cheese, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, green onion, shredded lettuce, olives and more. What’s important here is this: You can make chili in the slow cooker without browning the meat and draining the fat! Then you can serve it without ever dirtying a bowl!
Consider the recipe below simply a mild and beanless place to start. And please share your signature tweaks and twists, in the comment section or in The Lounge.
If you think a meal served in a disposable snack bag sounds vulgar, you are not alone. My children completely recoiled at the idea of Chili in a Bag when they first heard it. So did I, when Mom proposed it for my birthday swim party. But 35 years later, I’m waxing nostalgic about climbing out of a cold swimming pool to be handed a dry towel and a warm bag of chili, and how it was The Greatest Thing Ever. Meanwhile, my son has requested Chili in a Bag as the meal for his next big party, in lieu of pizza delivery.
Slow Cooker Chili
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground meat (As lean as you can find. I used 96% lean.)
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes
4-6 fresh tomatillos, diced
6-ounce can tomato paste
4-ounce can mild green chilis
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt to taste
Instructions
Pile all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook at LOW for at least 4 hours, stirring occasionally.
To serve: Let chili cool to a temperature that is comfortable to hold. Slit a snack bag of corn chips along the side crease. Scoop chili into bag and top with shredded cheese, salsa, guacamole, tomatoes, sour cream, shredded lettuce, cilantro, and other favorite taco toppings.
Remember: Slow Cooker Odyssey is a never-ending conversation in The Lounge. Looking for ideas? Made a brilliant tweak? Share it over here.
I think your mom was a genius — clearly before her time.
Yes, more and more, I realize this.
This is also perfect camping food and I’ve been wanting to make it for ages; but I have had a bugger of a time locating those little bags of Fritoes in sufficient quantities. I can only find them in a big box of snack-sized assorted chips. I’m a purist on this one thing: it must be Fritoes, no Doritos and certainly not Lays original potato chips. But, you have inspired me to keep looking.
Agreed! Only Fritos have the proper heft for the job.
Yes, Lara! I agree about Fritos being The One True Corn Chip for this purpose. But for exactly the reason you mention, I now own the detritus of two flavor mix bags of 20 “singlets.” Each bag of 20 only contains three Fritos singlets, and they are Chili Cheese flavored at that. I’d say someone needs to fix this, but, then again, Frito-Lay got me to buy 40 bags of chips when I only needed six. They’re not gonna be fixing that anytime soon!
Would it be too cost-prohibitive to buy the Fritos in a convenience store? That way you could get as many single-serve bags as you need without the leftover detritus of unwanted -itos. Just a thought.
I’m always curious when chili recipes say 1 tablespoon of chili, which is most of them. If I put in that amount, I can barely taste it. I put in, oh, a lot more than that. I use a good powdered chili from a Mexican store or Mexana, which is pretty good too. I also add extra cumin, which really contributes to the chili flavor, I think. I am also heat-averse and my taste buds are not deficient in other areas so I really wonder how others get by on so little chili powder.
AMEN MARY. I do not like a lot of heat but I love the flavor of chili powder so always put in a lot more and double up on the cumin as well.
Sorry, I did not see this until now, but obviously we are chili soulmates.
One of my favorite memories of my teens was a road trip to Santa Fe with a same-age friend. We strolled around the Plaza, Frito pies in hand. Chile! In a bag!
It’s silly, but Frito pie will never not be the Taste of Adulthood.
The mainstay of all Southern high school football games! And for a quick fix, Sonic driveins have them
Mmmm…..Sonic Drive-in…to paraphrase Max Daniels, Sonic will never not be the Taste of Pregnancy.
Fritos ingredients; corn, salt. Love that.
Walking tacos in my house, but we use taco meat, not chili. We also mostly eat them in a bowl, but it is still a quick, fun dinner with minimal cleanup when you have a dishwasher.
This sounds like a fantastic blast from the past, except that my family was nowhere near cool enough to have even thought of chili in a Fritos bag. I am now officially nostalgic for a past I never had! (My mom did make a very similar chili, though never with anything as exotic as tomatillos. I don’t think the Midwest had even heard of them at that point.)
Nowadays I’ve gone completely to the Dark Side (or maybe we can just call it The Other Side) and make a chili consisting manly of beans, tomatoes, onions, lots and lots of peppers (many colored bells and jalepenos), and plentiful spices. Corn kernels take the place of the ghostly presence of Corn Chips That Never Were, but I may try them the next time we have chili. 🙂
Please tell me you use a fork or spoon for this. Or better yet, a spork.
Fritos – but not in a single serve bag – and chili will be forever the Taste of Christmas Tree Hunting in my mind!
Back in the day (which is getting farther and farther back, sigh) we had chili ladled over Fritos in the bag at football games. I can’t recall for sure, it might be that there was cheese and onions available, but that was the extend of the fancy toppings. On a brisk fall evening it really hit the spot. Thanks for the memory.
I made this last night, and tripled the recipe. I used some substitutions like some crushed tomatoes and fattier beef that i drained first…
My family of 6 ate the entire pot! I had my fair share too. Triple the recipe and we ate it all, it was THAT good!
Love the cinnamon in there, great flavor.
I will definitely be making this again. Thanks so much for the recipe! Looking forward to trying some others.
Oh and i used bowls instead of the bag of chips. Kids still loved it and they all said more than once, wow, this is good.
I am so glad your family liked it! Thanks for the feedback.
We more than liked it, we loved it! In fact here I am again, making it again today for Father’s day lunch. My boys have continued to talk about how good it is. Thank you again!
We live in Texas and Frito Pie, or just plain chili, is a boring thing to eat. I am also flexible about recipes, but feel that beans are a healthful addition and cinnamon and chocolate are ridiculous. But whatever, it keeps the hungry adolescents fed!
I haven’t ever tried the bad but I do toss in a small pile of chocolate chips and it does wonders. For extra liquid I use spicy V-8. Yummm. I know what I am making tonight.