By Halloween night was cold — thirty-eight degrees, which in Utah means you put the costume over the coat and the coat over the sweater and the sweater over the child and the child looks like a padded Elsa or a insulated construction worker or a very round pumpkin, and you walk behind them on the sidewalk with a flashlight and a Ziploc bag of oyster crackers because the three-year-old will need a snack by the third house. Brandon came this year. He doesn't always — sometimes he stays home to hand out candy — but this year he came, and he held Noah on his shoulders, and Mason ran ahead in his hard hat, and Lily's cape billowed behind her, and Ethan walked next to me with his pillowcase half full and his dignity mostly intact, and for forty-five minutes on a Monday night in October, we were a family doing a family thing, and the family thing did not require me to think about January.
Olivia organized her candy by type before she went to bed. Skittles in one pile, chocolate in another, "weird stuff" in a third, which included a granola bar from Brother Jensen's house, and I wanted to call Brother Jensen and thank him for being the most predictable man in the ward and also tell him that no child in the history of trick-or-treating has been grateful for a granola bar, but the thought made me smile, which is worth more than the phone call.
Wednesday I did my Sunday prep on a Wednesday because Sunday was Halloween and the week got away from me, and I learned something: Wednesday prep works too. The day doesn't matter. The system matters. I made twelve meals in four hours — a personal record. Three bags of taco soup. Two pans of enchiladas, green sauce, chicken. A double batch of meatballs. Two bags of slow cooker pulled pork. A pan of cheesy potato soup. And a new one: beef stew, chunked and seasoned and bagged raw so it can go straight into the slow cooker frozen. Total grocery cost: $58.30 for twelve meals that will feed eight people each. That's $4.86 per meal. That's sixty-one cents per person per meal. I wrote that number on the index card and underlined it twice because sixty-one cents per person is not just a number. It's proof that I can do this. That feeding this family well does not require money we don't have. It requires a Sunday — or a Wednesday — and a system and a Sharpie and a freezer and a mother who refuses to stop.
The freezer is full. The November air is coming. The index card box has sixteen recipes. I am building something. I don't know what it is yet. But I am building it.
That week, standing in front of a full freezer with an index card that said sixty-one cents, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time—like I was actually ahead of something instead of behind it. So when I added a new recipe to the rotation that month, I wanted it to feel the same way: simple, stretching, unfussy. White chili with ground turkey costs almost nothing, feeds a crowd, and goes straight into the slow cooker so you can walk away and let it do its work. Here’s how I make it.
Slow Cooker White Chili with Ground Turkey
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 6–8 hours (low) or 3–4 hours (high) | Total Time: Up to 8 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 (15 oz) cans white beans (Great Northern or cannellini), drained and rinsed
- 1 (15 oz) can white corn, drained
- 2 (4 oz) cans diced green chiles
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- 4 oz cream cheese, cubed and softened
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- Optional toppings: shredded Monterey Jack, sliced green onions, tortilla chips, fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Brown the turkey. In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook ground turkey, breaking it up as it cooks, until no longer pink, about 6–8 minutes. Drain any excess fat. Add diced onion and garlic and cook 2 minutes more until softened.
- Load the slow cooker. Transfer turkey mixture to the slow cooker. Add white beans, corn, green chiles, chicken broth, cumin, chili powder, oregano, smoked paprika, cayenne (if using), and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours or on HIGH for 3–4 hours.
- Make it creamy. In the last 30 minutes of cooking, add the cubed cream cheese and stir until fully melted and incorporated. Stir in sour cream just before serving.
- Taste and adjust. Season with additional salt, pepper, or cumin to taste. Serve hot with your choice of toppings.
- To freeze as a batch meal. Let chili cool completely. Portion into gallon-size zip-top freezer bags (about 2–3 cups per bag), label with the date and contents, and lay flat to freeze. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat on the stovetop over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. Add a splash of broth if needed to loosen.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 310 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 24g | Fiber: 6g | Sodium: 480mg