Instant Pot turkey chili baked potatoes - 6 smart points

This is an excellent weeknight meal that is quick and makes plenty of leftovers! It's easy, so easy in fact, that my husband started it while I was at the gym after work and he is not an Instant Pot pro (yet! he will be :)).

It's also healthy, only 6 smart points on Weight Watchers freestyle program. Now, if you aren't on the program you can also load it up with cheese and sour cream and make it decadent, don't get me wrong.

In my ideal world, I would use two instant pots to make this simultaneously but since I sadly only have one, that's not an option for me. I have included suggestions on how I would do it if I had two...some day!

There are two parts to this meal - baked potatoes and turkey chili. Most of the points, will come from your potato, so you could just eat the chili!

Part 1 - Pressure cooking potatoes

Put your trivet in the bottom of your Instant Pot electric pressure cooker. I use a 6 quart Duo IP. If you have a 3 quart, you can likely also use it for your potatoes but you will not be able to make as many potatoes at one time. If you only have one IP, like me, you will want to cook your chili on the stove but the chili requires a least a 6 quart, so you will want to use the smaller one for potatoes.

Put 6 medium baked potatoes on top of the trivet and pour in 1 cup of water. Set your instant pot to pressure cook, high and set for 10 minutes. When the cooking cycle is completed allow to naturally release for 20 minutes. While your potatoes are cooking, you will want to start your chili.

One medium potato is 5 smart points.

Part 2 - Turkey Chili

If you have a second instant pot, you can make the chili in it as well, you will need at least a 6 quart. Or you can cook the two items back to back, cleaning our your insert in between or using a second insert. Otherwise, I use my Cuisinart enameled Dutch oven.

Ingredients:
20 oz 99% fat free ground turkey breast
2 tsp olive oil
1 package chili seasoning
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans
1 tsp liquid smoke

Stove directions: Heat olive oil in Dutch oven on medium to high heat and sauté turkey with chili seasoning until fully cooked, about 8-10 minutes. Add beans and tomatoes to the pot with enough water to cover the contents. Allow to simmer at least 10 minutes on the stove, ideally 20 minutes.

Instant Pot directions: A 6 quart, or larger, instant pot is needed. Turn the IP on to sauté, high. Add the olive oil to the bottom of the pan and sauté turkey with chili seasoning until fully cooked, about 8-10 minutes. Add beans and tomatoes to the pot with enough water to cover the contents. Put the lid on the IP and close the vent. Change the setting on the IP to manual, high pressure and set for 10 minutes. When the cooking time is completed, you can quick release the pressure.

My preferred way to make chili is in the Instant Pot but until I get a second pot, to make this combination meal I unfortunately have to use my stove! I think the IP does give the chili a better flavor in less time.

Recipe makes 6 servings, each serving is 1 point.

I smash my baked potato up and top with a full serving of the chili, for 6 points total. You can optionally top with fat free Greek yogurt (0 points) and low fat shredded cheese (3 points for 1/4 cup).

With cheese, it's 9 points.

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Low carb stuffed peppers in the Instant Pot

Stuffed peppers using black beans instead of rice is one of my go-to low carb meals. Even though a cup of cooked beans and a cup of rice both have around 45 carbs, the black beans have so much fiber they only have around 30 net carbs. The rice has almost no fiber! Plus, black beans have 3x as much protein.

Since I recently became obsessed with my instant pot electric pressure cooker and started a low carb diet at the beginning of the year, I wanted to try making them in the instant pot.

I also used ground turkey instead of beef to keep them lower calorie. Is this diet over yet? Sigh.

Ingredients:

20 oz ground turkey (you can use beef if you want)

15 oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

3 cups shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese (or cheese of your choice, something that will melt nicely), divided

4-6 bell peppers (I buy the multi-colored 3 pack of peppers)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika (you can use regular but I like Hungarian or smoked)

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon ground pepper

1 ½ cups chicken broth (if using ground beef, I suggest using beef broth)
sour cream, optional garnish

Directions:

Mix ground turkey with 2 cups of cheese and all spices until well combined.

Turn your instant pot on and set to sauté, normal. Place the trivet in the bottom and pour the broth in the bottom of the pot. This will allow the pot to pre-heat while you get your peppers ready and help it to come up to pressure faster. Cut the tops off and remove the seeds from the peppers. Cut a small hole in the bottom of each pepper to allow fat from the meat to drain out.

Fill the peppers with the meat mixture and place on top of the trivet. Be careful, as the sides of the pot will be hot. Top the peppers with the remaining cheese.

Press cancel on the Instant Pot to turn off the sauté function and press manual pressure high and set for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, quick release the pressure. 

Check the internal temperature to check it's at least 165 degrees (I use a digital thermometer like this one).

176 degrees, ready to go!

I cut it in half and top it with sour cream. If you like this recipe, check out my low carb stuffed pepper soup for the IP, made with quinoa!

Sausage Tortellini Soup

It's not really the soup season anymore (or so I would like to think, the weather has been crazy) but I've made this soup twice recently and it was very good, especially for a 20 minute dinner!

I found this recipe via pinterest and you can find the original here and I've put the directions below.

Ingredients:
3 cups cooked Italian sausage (see my change below)
3 cups uncooked tortellini
4 cups water
1 can evaporated milk
6 chicken boullion cubes - (I only used 2-3, seemed like a little bit much to me?)
1 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. parsley
1 tbsp. chives
salt & pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese

Put all ingredients except tortellini in medium size sauce pan and bring to boil.  Allow to simmer about 15 minutes.  Add tortellini and allow to boil according to pasta pkg. instructions.  Sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan cheese and serve.

I did not have any pre-cooked sausage. I had uncooked Italian turkey sausage, I sliced my sausage up and cooked it lightly in the olive oil in the bottom of the pot. After my sausage was cooked I added all the other ingredients except tortellini per the directions above.

Cooking the sausage in the same pan you are going to use for the soup will add all the juices from the meat to the soup = extra flavor!

Turkey spinach meatloaf

On my way back from Puerto Rico, I was reading trashy magazines on the plane. Don't judge me too much, I was on vacation and I had read the Omnivore's Dilemma, while on the beach (incidentally, it's very good if you are interested in food issues). One of the magazines I read was the May issue of Self, which had a tasty looking recipe for low-calorie turkey meatloaf.

I actually don't like meatloaf normally. The idea of eating a big slab of greasy meat never really appealed to me but this looked delicious! Maybe it was because it had spinach in it. Plus I had about 2 lbs of ground turkey in the freezer from when my dad visited and all the other ingredients on hand too, except for the spinach.

When I started to mix up the ingredients, one thing was abundantly clear - the recipe did not call for nearly enough bread crumbs. I imagine this is make it healthier, since it's part of Self's weight-loss program, the Self challenge. I was also really tempted to pour some red wine over the meatloaf, Portuguese style, but I did not, maybe next time. It also called for feta, which I don't know, seemed weird to me, maybe I'll give it a shot some time.

Turkey Spinach Meatloaf (with my adaptations, original is here)

1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 eggs
3/4 cup chopped spinach
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 Tb of Oregano
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Grease small glass baking pan (circa 9x11). Form meat mixture into a loaf and place in greased pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

This was super delicious, I ate significantly more than I should have. One note for the singletons, this will make 3-4 servings. If you wanted to pare it down, you could use half a pound of meat, 1 egg and adjust everything else accordingly to get two smaller servings but it is by no means huge if you follow the directions above.

Following the Self recipe exactly, a 1/4 of the meatloaf is 270 calories, taking out the feta will definitely lower that a little but since I increased the bread crumbs, I'd imagine it to come out about even. So long as you pair it with a healthy side, you are looking at a very low calorie dinner - unless you eat as much of it as I did!

Taste: A
Cost: A+ (ground turkey is much less expensive than other meat options)
Waste: A+ (The ingredients are basic and should be easy to use any extras)