Low-Carb Chili Experiment

Low-carbing is hard. I'm not gonna lie.

There are days I dream of french fries and pasta and pizza and Chinese takeout.

Okay, so maybe the pizza becomes a reality pretty often on the weekends.. but everyone's allowed a little cheat day every now and then.

Somehow, I wound up with a relentless craving for a bowl of chili yesterday.

So I decided to experiment with some low-carb alternatives, even though regular chili isn't really that bad in the carb department.

Here's how it went.
  To begin, I mixed some mushrooms, ground beef, diced onions, and diced peppers into a skillet set on medium heat.

I cooked the ground beef until it browned, and covered the skillet for a few minutes at a time so that the mushrooms would steam properly, stirring often. After the mushrooms had softened, I began cutting them into smaller pieces with the edge of the spatula.

After the ingredients had cooked for several minutes, I added a splash (or maybe a little more than a splash) of red wine for flavor. I waited another three minutes or so until the mixture heated up, stirring everything together, and then drained the liquid out of the skillet into the sink.

 

I found some lower sugar pasta sauce at the grocery store today. The light Ragu claims there is no sugar added, although the ingredients state otherwise. However, only 2 grams of sugar in half a cup of tomato sauce works well in the low-carb arena.  



Okay, so the skillet goes back onto the stovetop, and I added in about 1/3 of the jar of tomato sauce (obviously you can add as much as you want, depending on the consistency you're looking for-- if you're looking to make more of a spaghetti sauce here, you'd want to add even more) and sprinkled some shredded mozzarella in just for a little more flavor.

 

And voilà.

(I'm a parmesan addict, so I added a sprinkle on top as well)