Chili can be hit or miss with many kids. But this Sweet Chili Recipe is always a favorite with everyone who tries it! The slightly sweet sauce combined with the baked beans and ground beef are a welcome comfort food all year long! Plus this chili recipe is super easy to throw together! This recipe is sure to be a favorite with your whole family.
An easy dinner recipe that even picky eaters will LOVE!
Sweet Chili Recipe
Fall is our families favorite season. I don’t know if it is the brisk mornings, the beauty of colorful falling leaves, going to the pumpkin patch or the warm homemade soups with homemade bread. But whatever it is, our favorite sweet chili recipe is perfect to make any day for a quick supper!
Sweet Chili
Cut up the bacon to cook in stok pot to cook quicker and save cooking time
Best Sweet Chili Recipe
Start out by cutting up and cooking 4-6 pieces of bacon in a large stock pot. We use bacon with no nitrates added. Cook bacon over medium, high heat until the bacon is lightly browned. It only takes about 3-5 minutes because it is already cut up.
Add some yummy, healthy sweet peppers
Next, chop up one sweet pepper and cook in the bacon grease. Cooking the pepper in the bacon grease will add some extra flavor to your chili. You can use red, orange, yellow, purple or even the home grown chocolate pepper varieties. You will continue to cook the pepper and bacon in the pan another 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent over growning.
Choose a lean ground beef or ground turkey
Sweet Chilli Recipe
Then add 1 lb of lean ground beef to your easy sweet chili recipe. We use organic 100% grass fed and finished ground beef, but you could use ground turkey or steak meat if you prefer.
This is how your dinner should look at this point
Now continue cook while you break apart he beef and stir this quick and easy dinner until the meat is cooked through.
Dump in cans of baked beans
Easy Chili Recipe
Finally the easy part is dumping in cans of baked beans, brown sugar or molasses, salt / pepper, corn, tomato sauce, and dry mustard (secret ingredient that adds a little something special to your easy sweet chili). Cook until heated thoroughly, about 7-8 more minutes.
Your recipe can be made quickly in stock pot taking only 20 minutes or you can let it hang out over low heat to let the flavors take longer to mix and develop into a rich, sweet, robust flavor your family will love.
HINT: You can make this crock pot and freezer friendly recipe in an instapot if you prefer by putting it on sauté to cook bacon, pepper, and beef before adding remaining ingredients and setting your pot to cook for 5 minutes.

Sweet chili recipe brown sugar
There are several different ways you can play around with and tweak your dinner recipe to make it perfect for your family. Here are a couple additional ingredients you can add to make it uniquely yours:
- fire roasted corn (has a deeper flavor)
- corn with pimientos (for a little extra kick)
- jalapenos (give your chili a sweet and tangy flavor
- 1/2 cup bbq sauce – adding barbecue sauce gives it a litte zesty twist to this chili recipe with brown sugar
- fire roasted tomatoes to add more healthy vegetables (okay so technically it is a fruit, but it is good for you!)
Best Soup Recipes
- Instapot Chicken Noodle Soup – You’ll never go back to store bough soup again with this easy to make, hearty, and incredibly flavorful recipe.
- Green Chicken Taco Soup – Do you like easy recipes? This quick recipe has such a rich flavor your family will love it!
- Amazing Thanksgiving Leftover Soup – Our most popular soup recipe for good reason – rich, creamy, and chaulked with flavor and leftover turkey!
- Instapot Corn Chowder – Corn chowder has long been my husbands favorite soup, but now he only likes my award winning recipe that is loaded with potatoes and bacon to make it extra hearty and delicious!
- Easy Pumpkin Chili Recipe – This chili recipe is filled with good-for-you pumpkin that makes it a fall favorite for the whole family.
- Early Autumn Stew – A unique bend of sausage and apples that smells and tastes like your favorite fall memory.
BEST Sweet Chili Recipe
Ingredients
- 6-8 slices bacon
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 large sweet pepper, chopped
- 33 ounces tomato sauce (1 box)
- 1/4 cup molasses or brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 2 large cans baked beans
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1-2 cups corn, optional
Instructions
- In a large stock pot cook 4-6 slices of cut up bacon over medium high heat until it looks about half way done – just about 2-3 minutes.
- Add a chopped pepper (any color) to the bacon and continue to cook another 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add 1 lb ground beef and continue to cook until book is thoroughly cooked.
- Now add the remaining ingredients and continue cooking until heated thoroughly, about 7-8 more minutes.
- Serve with cornbread or tortilla chips.
Well I thought I had bought ground turkey but instead bought sausage!! How could I have done that!! And thank you for the brown rice link, and yup that was the one!! Anyway I did make this tonight but instead of turkey I used ground beef! It was all I had and I wanted to make this so bad. But guess what – it was fantastic!! I know it would have been healthier with the turkey but this was, as my husband said — give it two yums!!! Thanks again
This is my families new favorite recipe! Thanks for such a simple recipe that even my picky eaters love.
This recipe was not only easy, but super yummhy too. Thanks.
Finally getting around to leaving a comment. This has become our go to meal all winter long for the last couple years and I always tell people I got it on your site.
You are AMAZING! Thank you thank you thank you so much for this. I was considering doing the same thing and you’ve just made the task a lot less daunting.
I didn’t see any chili seasoning in the recipe. Did I miss it?
the only “sesoning” is the dry mustard. The rest of the flavor comes from the brown sugar / molasses, baked beans, and add-ins =)
Holy Smokes Batman, this was delicious!
My kids are picky eaters and I wasn’t sure about this… but I decided to try it and it was a huge hit. I love how easy it was to make
Tried this in quarantine and just now getting back to rate it. This recipe is super flavorful, easy to make, and best of all – my family loved it. Thanks for sharing.
This is my new favorite chili recipe.
So simple and yet so yummy. This is a regular in our menu rotations now.
Just what I was looking for!
I don’t usually take time to write a review, but this was so yummy I just had to. Thanks!