This turkey chili with sweet potatoes, black beans and quinoa is a hearty, healthy bowl of goodness that cooks in the slow cooker all day long and is a guaranteed weeknight dinner winner. It takes 10 minutes to put together, can be made ahead, freezes wonderfully and is gluten-free. Slow cooker recipes save many a weeknight in our house, and this one is being added into the heavy rotation.
What You’ll Love
What’s not to love about any good slow cooker recipe? They’re fast, easy, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as coming home to dinner that’s ready to serve and only one dish to clean.
Chili is a slow cooker dream. The flavors only get better over time, so low and slow is the best way to cook it. I’ve been known to come home to my slow cooker and hit the warm button 4 or 5 times before we actually sit down to eat, and this is a recipe that won’t be any worse for the wear with a few (or 20) delays.
This is also one of those weeknight dinners that you can feel totally good about eating. Quinoa gives the chili an extra protein boost to make this satisfying and hearty. And only 380 calories per serving means more room for toppings.
Because we all know that toppings are where chili dinners really go from good to amazing.
Pile those bowls high.
Make Ahead / Freezer Friendly Chili
There is some magic that happens when you make chili ahead of time that means it tastes better on Tuesday than on Monday. In this case, you can slow cook the whole batch early in the week, or load up the slow cooker on Sunday night (pre-cook the turkey as outlined in Step #1 in that case) and just start it cooking first thing Monday or Tuesday morning.
And bonus that this freezes well too – add it to our list of favorite freezer meals!
Hope you’re staying warm (and well-fed) this week!
Slow Cooker Turkey, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Chili
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp Oil
- 1 1/2 lb Lean Ground Turkey
- 2 Tbsp Chili Powder
- 2 tsp Ground Cumin
- 1 Red Onion, chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 lb Sweet Potatoes, cubed
- 1/4 cup Uncooked Quinoa
- 1 (15-oz) can Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes
- 1 (15-oz) can Black Beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (15-oz) can Tomato Sauce (or tomato "puree")
- 1/2 cup Low-Sodium Chicken or Vegetable Stock
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp Black Pepper
Optional Toppings:
- Shredded Cheese
- Tortilla Chips
- Sour Cream
- Cilantro
Instructions
- Pre-Cook Turkey: (Do this up to 3 days in advance and refrigerate the turkey until you're ready to start the slow cooker.) Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onion and garlic and saute until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add turkey, chili powder and cumin and continue cooking until turkey crumbles and is no longer pink, about 4 minutes.
- Slow Cook Chili: Combine cooked turkey and all remaining ingredients (through the toppings). Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6-8 hours. Taste and add salt and pepper, if needed.
- Serve with toppings of choice!
Nutrition
And while the chili cooks, our two little ladies are busy discussing dog walking neighbors and the chance that constantly wearing wings will someday enable them to take flight.
Looks yummy but aren’t you missing the chili powder? I’d like to make this on the weekend – please let me know if you make chili without chili powder, or if you just forgot it on ingredient list. Thanks!
Katie – you are spot on! Thanks so much for your note. The recipe is correct now. We recently moved all of our recipes into a new format and have found one or two ingredients that were improperly formatted in the process. Thanks again!
We had this for dinner last night! The kids were devouring the chili and the look on their faces was priceless when I told them thanks for eating quinoa (they hate it). I added more beans and put my twist on the spices but this gave me a good start.
Love that Kristina! So glad that even the kids liked it – they’re always our toughest (and best!) critics!
Doubled this recipe and brought it to a potluck. There was not a drop left at the end of the day!
Thank you for such a wonderful recipe.
OMG!!! My first time making homemade chili, and it is amazing!!! I don’t even need toppings 🙂
Awesome Naomi! I’m so glad you liked it! Definitely one of our favorites!! Thanks so much for letting us know.
This chili has become a staple in our house! We are obsessed over it! I even entered it into a chili competition at work and it placed third out of 10 – amazing for an office that isn’t keen on healthy food! Thanks again for sharing this amazing chili!
Yay! We’re so glad to hear that and congratulations on the third place win! How fun!!!
This is AMAZING!!!! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! we loved it!!
YAY! So glad you liked it, Jessica! So easy and healthy, right? This is one of my favorites. Actually…need to make a batch to tuck away in the freezer before our baby girl comes – thanks for the reminder!
Was looking for something different than some of the same old bland turkey chili recipes out there. This looked so flavorful and healthy that I had to try it. So glad we did – we absolutely love it. I made this in my instant pot in less than 1 hour for prep and cook. As a mom of a Type 1 diabetic, I especially love the added nutritional information and carb counts with your recipe. THANK YOU!!
Delicious! I made it exactly as written and it didn’t need anything more. I’m so glad to find a recipe that used all the ingredients I had on hand. Simple and very filling too. I’ll absolutely make this again!
I’m so glad you liked it, Janet! This is one of our favorites, and so satisfying when the weather starts getting cold!
This looks and sounds delicious, and its crocking away as I type this. And at 380 calories per serving? I am on board!
Except 3/4 cup is hardly what I’d call a dinner-sized serving, much less a super-satisfying serving, and the bowl depicted in the picture is definitely larger than 3/4 cup. Looking at the crock, the whole batch it also looks to be more than 4 1/2 cups total (6 -3/4 cup servings). Was that a typo? Miscalculation? I’m asking because I saw the bowl in the picture, and I saw the 380 cals in the description and was sold. But if your bowl is actually a normal person’s sized bowl of soup, its probably at least 1.5 cups if not 2, and therefore approx. 570-760 calories. Which isn’t terrible by any means. If this wasn’t a typo or miscalculation, this is pretty misleading.
Hi there! Thanks for your careful read of the recipe and note about the error. We use My Fitness Pal to calculate the nutrition information for all of our recipes and find that the result is usually very accurate. In this case, the error you caught is just in the serving size. This recipe makes 6 servings at 380 calories per serving. The serving size estimate was inaccurate and has been updated – each serving will, in fact be closer to 1 3/4 cups. Thanks again!
Phew! Because it’s so delicious and I ate a true 1.5-ish cup serving of it.
Thanks for responding! I’ve been sharing this recipe with friends. It’s so good.
Great! I’m so glad! Sorry for the confusion, but thanks again for flagging it.
Enjoyed this recipe very much- even teenager and husband approved. I added two chopped poblano peppers and one chopped red pepper.
Super easy and delish.
Thanks Megan! So glad you liked it!
Delicious. I added a 4oz can of chilies and some extra chili powder and cinnamon for extra kick. Very tasty and easy.
Yum – great ideas for additions!
Hi, can you convert the portion size to Grammes please or explain the weight of cups in measurements please
Hi Shelley – it is our hope to add conversions to all of our recipes in the future, so it’s on the list. For now, Google can provide very easy and quick conversions for any measurements given on the site.
I added the recipe ingredients up using the exact recommended ingredients, and came out with about 70 more calories per serving. Fat, carbohydrate and protein were not off by too much to matter, but I think the calorie count is a more considerable error.
Hi Pamela – thanks so much for your note. We use a tool within the site to calculate the nutritional information on each recipe, so we do sometimes come up with slightly different values than users who use another tool. We’ll definitely double check this one just to be sure it’s correct.
Old bachelor here! – This recipe sounds delicious! Was wondering if it’s possible to estimate what size slow cooker (in quarts) would be needed for this recipe using the recommended ingredient amounts? Also – could ground chicken be substituted for the ground turkey?
Hi Jerry! I’d recommend a 6-quart slow cooker for this one, though I bet it could work in a 4-quart (though with very little room to spare). Yes! I’ve made it with ground chicken, and it’s a great sub. Enjoy!
So glad I came across your recipe! I ended up making it with ground chicken (it’s what I had on hand) and it was absolutely delicious!! The only other thing I changed was using frozen cubed sweet potatoes instead of cutting and dicing. Will definitely be making again over the winter months. Thanks for your hints on slow cooker size, I split the difference and used a 5 QT slow cooker which turned out to be a perfect.
So glad to hear the 5 quart worked and that you enjoyed the chili. Thanks so much for your note!