10-Minute Instant Pot Chili Recipe | Cooking in the RV

Cooking in an RV can be easy and you can even do it in the smallest of spaces. I'm here in our camper van and today I'm going to share one of my favorite instant pot recipes with you. Now don't get any funny ideas, I'm never this organized but I figured it would help for the video and just make the video go that much smoother. But today I'm going to be making a pork chili. Now despite how hungry we all are, the star of the show today is not the chili, it's the instant pot. So this is the three-quart instant pot and we've had it ever since we started van life five, six years ago. It has been with us on all of our travels and we absolutely love this. This is going to be doing all the hard work today. I'm just throwing stuff in there and I'll show you how easy it is to make a meal out of this instant pot. I'll also make sure to link to our instant pot so you know exactly which one we have. First step is to brown the meat, so I'm going to put this on saute. Start breaking this up. So I normally don't have someone looking over my shoulder with a camera when I'm cooking, so I forgot to put the oil in. So I'm using some avocado oil. Also I put a pound of ground pork in. As I mentioned earlier, you can substitute this with beef, vegetables, whatever it is you want to use for your chili. Start seasoning with a little salt and pepper. At the beginning of the video I said this is one of my favorite instant pot recipes. Well, favorite in that I love chili. But I don't specifically have a recipe. I just throw stuff in, whatever I can find at the store when we go. So today we found kidney beans, a can of green chilies, diced tomatoes, got the pork. So that's all the stuff that's going in the chili along with all the spices and everything. I think now that this is starting to brown a little bit, I'm going to put in most of our onions. This is one whole chopped brown onion. I'm going to leave some behind to put on top of the chili once we're done. Sorry, this is a white onion. Kate just corrected me. Oops, it wouldn't be me if I didn't spill stuff all over the floor. So here's our Volta battery system. We're currently at 55% battery and we're drawing about, well you can see what the power flow is. It changes constantly depending on what the instant pot is doing. Now I don't have fresh garlic so I am using garlic powder. Put a bunch of that in and this is starting to smell really good. Those onions are sautéing up nicely. Now the reason for all the canned goods that I'm using today is because they're very RV friendly. They're easy to store. You can stick them just about anywhere. So that is what I'm using today or that is why I'm using those today. We do use a lot of fresh produce, especially when we come across a local farmer's market. The problem with fresh produce, especially in a small camper in a small space like this, is that you have limited fridge space. So things that need to go in a refrigerator or fresh food in general just has to be eaten a lot quicker. So if you're out boondocking in the forest or something and you don't have access to that, your fresh food could go bad quickly or get used up quickly. So canned goods are always there and ready to roll. I think I'm going to put some more garlic in. Don't be shy with the garlic. Number one rule of living or camping out of an RV is if one of you has garlic and onions, the other one has garlic and onions. Trust me, you do not want to be in this small space when that garlic starts seeping out of your pores. Brings back nightmares just thinking about it. Okay, our meat is all browned so I'm going to start seasoning. I'm starting with this Trader Joe's chili seasoning blend. I love this stuff. It has a nice smoky flavor to it. And for those of you who are spice intolerant, this is actually not too bad. It's got a little heat to it. The humidity out here is kicking this. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Come on. Hold on a second. I'm having some problems here. I will say the nice thing about cooking in a camper van is that everything you need is right here. I don't have to move anywhere to go grab something. Let's loosen this up a little bit. Move dangerously and not put the top back on. And now for all of you who do like a little spice in your life, let's see, chipotle powder. This has a nice little kick of heat and adds a good smoky flavor to just about anything. Oh, that smells good. These are crushed red peppers and these crushed red peppers are quite spicy. I don't know where Kate got these things but make sure you get the seeds in there. And finally, the coup de gras is going to be habanero pepper. See how spicy that actually is. Oh, oh my god. Excuse me. That came on strong. All right, this is going to be a good chili. I think we need some more of this. For those of you, excuse me, who are out boondocking someplace and a toilet or other restroom is not readily available, adding this amount of spice may not be the best idea. Just saying. You got to, when you're living the van life or RV life, you really have to think ahead after a meal like this. We've got fire roasted tomatoes, two cans, and one can of beans. I'm using the dark red kidney beans and I know all y'all from Texas, I'm sorry, this can't be really called a chili if I'm putting beans in it, but it is. And the last thing that's going to go in there are fire roasted green chilies. Now, another staple of van life is having things that are small, compact. This is our can opener. I'll link to this on Amazon as well so you can find it, but these are great to have and they work quite well. Let's give these a taste as well. It says medium. Oh, they're good. All right, put the whole can in. That smells good. Let me take a little taste for flavor. Oh, that's spicy. I like it. We do need more salt though. I'm also going to toss in a little bit more chili seasoning. What I'm doing now is I'm just letting this come to a simmer, kind of simmer off a little bit of the moisture in there and then we'll put the top on and start the pressure cook part of this because this will be done in 10 minutes. Now, with the Instant Pot, you don't have to let this come to a simmer. You can put the top right on and get in the pressure cooking. But again, I wanted to get some of the extra liquid off the top. And since it is ready, I will cancel saute mode. Put the lid on. We're going to do this for 10 minutes. And I like to turn keep warm off. And there we go. It's off and running. It does take a couple of minutes to come to pressure. Once it does, the timer will start its countdown and then it counts down from 10 minutes. So while we're waiting for it, I'm cracking into the corn chips. I don't know about you, but having the Frito scoops with chili is on point. I did take a taste of Joe's chili before he put the lid on. It's going to be spicy. I'm glad we're going to have some corn chips to go with it. But this Instant Pot is not my first. So my very first Instant Pot was a six quart that was gifted to me by one of our subscribers when we still had our Class A motor home. And I would say the six quart Instant Pot was perfect for that size RV. But this one is ideal for smaller campers. And now that we have a home base, we have the eight quart Instant Pot, which also includes the sous vide option that Joe uses quite frequently to make steaks, chicken, pork loin. And it tastes amazing. When we first started van life, this was the only cooking gadget that we had in our van. We've since expanded a little bit, but we still keep things very simple. The fewer things we can have in a small space, the better, but we still enjoy good meals at home. So having items like the chili seasoning blend or other types of all-purpose seasoning blends that you can use in a variety of things will minimize the amount of stuff or spices specifically you have to pack in your small camper or any RV. Oh, look at that. And once this cools down, the liquid kind of reabsorbs into things. Okay, I think it's gotten back to a good consistency. All right, a little onion, cheese, some more cheese, picking this guy up. Let's get this mixed up. That came out really well. All the flavors I put in there, the chilies and smoked peppers are really coming through. And what's nice is the cheese in there is helping cut some of the heat, but it's still very spicy. Okay, I got to try this with a corn chip. That is definitely the way to go. With the three-quart using a pound of ground pork and all the beans and tomatoes that I put in, you can easily feed four people, especially if you're making some cornbread or something else on the side. Kate does have a little Omnia oven where she can make cornbread right in the camper. And I hope you can see not only how easy it is to put something together in an Instant Pot, but you can do it in the smallest of spaces like this camper van. I would love to know in the comments below some of the things you make out of your camper or things you would like to make in your camper, but you don't think are necessarily possible. I'd be curious if that is even the case. I think you can make just about anything you want out of a camper van or any RV for that matter. So that is it for this RV cooking video. I'm going to get back to my chili. And if you want to get back to some more cool content from us about cooking, some of the things that we use in the kitchen like this Instant Pot, head on over to our website at weretherussos.com and we'll see you next time right after I finish this bowl of chili. Bye guys. My second book, Tales from the Open Road, The Adventures and Misadventures of RV Living is now available for sale on Amazon. Read all about the ups and downs of our first year and full time.