World's Easiest Vegan Chili

Before Cooking

Fake meat chili in the slow cooker? Super easy. We eat meat, but occasionally buy meat substitutes, and they're usually packaged in a way where you can keep it in the freezer until you need it. This takes under 10 minutes to prepare, and you spend most of that time dicing an onion.

Ingredients:

• 1 can mild chili beans in mild chili sauce, 14.5 ounces
• 1 can black beans, 14.5 ounces
• 1 can diced tomatoes, 14.5 ounces
• 1 package fake meat grounds (11 oz. in our case)
• Your favorite onion (we had a big ole' white onion)
• Chili seasoning packet (Aldi's Stonemill Original Chili Seasoning Mix)

The fake meat doesn't really matter; just get one that looks like crumbled ground beef and comes in a package of somewhere around or just under a pound. I see both 11 ounce and 14 ounce packages. I bought these "Beyond Beef" grounds on a whim at our local Target. Everything else came from Aldi, my favorite grocery store. You don't have to buy "chili" beans, either. Almost any kind of beans will work.

To prepare, all you need to do is:

• Dice the onion.
• Open the two cans of beans and can of diced tomatoes. Drain them, but do not strain them. Meaning, hold the lid down and turn the cans upside down, draining most, but not all of the liquid into the sink. (If you don't do this, the chili comes out watery.)
• Throw the onion, frozen fake meat crumbles, beans and diced tomatoes into the crock pot.
• Add the chili seasoning packet.
• Stir everything together.
• Set the slow cooker for at least eight hours on low.

Then when dinner time rolls around, you've got delicious chili that tastes pretty good.

If you hate animals, you can add sour cream and shredded cheese to taste.