This hearty Garden Vegetable Beef and Bean Chili is cooked slowly with zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, extra lean beef and black beans.

What do you do when you have a plethora of garden tomatoes, zucchini and yellow squash? Make this Garden Vegetable Beef & Bean Chili of course!

It's definitely time for cool weather food like soup, stews, casseroles and chili and I've been enjoying the new Fall, comfort food experiments.

I have to say that behind all of these recipes that I have floating around in my head to make, I also have an ulterior motive. With our daughter away at college and cooking for herself, I want to make sure she gets some home cooked meals too.

Making extra items like this chili is great to hold in the freezer to give to her when we visit or she comes home.

She doesn't say it out loud, but I think she misses coming home from school every day to see what I've whipped up.

I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when she actually asked me how to make quinoa salad. I told her how to cook it first; then gave her some add-in ideas to let her create her own masterpiece.

Then it happened. I had a very proud mama moment when my husband and I got a text message with a picture of her quinoa salad with the caption of "Look, I'm just like mom now!". Totally made my day!

Anyway, back to this amazing Garden Vegetable Beef & Been Chili! As I mentioned before, I had a ton of garden vegetables to use before they went bad and had recently purchased some ground beef.

Ingredients Needed

For this recipe you'll need

ground beef
garlic
zucchini
yellow squash
Portobello mushrooms
tomatoes
onions
black beans
beef broth
chili powder

How do you make Beef and Black Bean Chili?

I used 90/10 ground beef so it was extra lean, but feel free to use whatever ground beef you like. If you do use a ground beef with higher fat content, I recommend draining the fat/liquid before adding the vegetables.

Start by browning the ground beef in a Dutch oven or large pot; then add the garlic, mushrooms, zucchini, squash and onions and stir until the vegetables start to soften; approximately 3-4 minutes.

Add the beans, tomatoes, beef broth and chili powder; stir well. Cover the pot halfway, reduce heat and simmer for 1 ½-2 hours.

This Garden Vegetable Beef and Bean Cilii was delicious! Feel free to add your favorite vegetables because as you all know, I don't like peppers.

One of the things I like about this chili was that I was able to get my 12 year old to eat it as well, even though it had squash in it; which she isn't a huge fan of.

This chili can be made on top of the stove in a Dutch oven like I did, or you can cook it in your slow cooker after browning your ground beef on Low 6--8 hours; High 4-6 hours.

Serve this chili 'as is' or over a bed of rice; then freeze the rest for later. ~Enjoy!

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