Green Tomato Garlic Chili in the Instant Pot® or Slow Cooker

Green tomatoes, roasted garlic, and ground beef make a colorful and flavorful chili recipe perfect for fall. You can make this in the Instant Pot®, a slow cooker, or on the stovetop. 

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As someone who cooks with what's in season, this time of year means green tomatoes. I decided to update an old post from my first year, really the first few weeks of starting this website. In addition to publishing new photos and adding an easier to read recipe card, I've also cooked this recipe in my newest appliance, the Instant Pot®. My husband bought me an early birthday/Christmas present, and I unboxed it--with the dogs' help--and shared the resulting video on my FB page. I'm quite happy to ditch the old, poor quality photos for some newer, still poor quality photos (it's been raining here), but I didn't want to delete how I was inspired to make this chili. For that, please feel free to read my original text below.

I recently started volunteering at a thrift shop.  I didn't realize that it would mean I'd be shopping at the thrift shop on a regular basis, which is an unfortunate happy side effect.  I mean, I did get a pair of new-to-me jeans for $3.  And they're not 'mom jeans' either. Last time I volunteered was after I'd made the Cabin Casserole.  I was chatting with Fran about it, and how the recipe called for green tomatoes, when she told me about her Green Tomato Garlic Chili.  I immediately requested the recipe! This recipe is from The Garlic Lover's Cookbook. I've adapted Fran's recipe by cutting the fat, adjusting the spices, swapping roasted for fresh garlic, pumping up the amount of veggies, and finely chopping everything so my kids will eat it. We liked it so much that I harvested the rest of the green tomatoes on my plants, cored them (the composting pigs like green tomatoes too!) pulsed them in my lovely food processor, and froze 2 2+ lb bags of green tomatoes for winter chili nights.  Make that chilly winter nights.  Oooh!

A few Notes about this recipe.

1. I used ground beef, but feel free to substitute fresh ground pork. I already know ground pork and green tomatoes make a great chili--check out my Chorizo & Green Tomato Chili recipe here.
2. Use the hot peppers of your choice. I'm able to get quarts of freshly roasted Hatch chiles each August from the local grocery store, and I pop them into the freezer to use throughout the year. I think using roasted chiles adds more flavor than fresh chiles, so I do recommend using roasted green chiles.
3. No roasted garlic? No problem! You can substitute minced garlic, probably ⅓ of a cup. Like with the chiles, I think that using roasted garlic punches up the flavor in many dishes. When I harvest my garlic crop each summer, I roast and freeze a portion for use throughout the year. Here's a post about how I put up my garlic crop.
4. That's a lot of chopping! Yes--I like to start my day at work chopping a bunch of onions, but if chopping isn't your thing, run the onions, bell peppers, and green tomatoes in turns through a food processor until they are finely chopped. [If you don't have a food processor and chopping's not your thing . . . add that to your birthday wish list and find room in the kitchen.]
5. I've included instructions for cooking this chili in an Instant Pot® (mine is 6 quarts, plenty of room), in a slow cooker, and on the stove top. I am sure you could figure out a way to cook this on a grill--but I'm not going to do that. I grill pizza and vegetables mostly, and I'm good with that.

Whole Grain Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins #MuffinMonday

Buttermilk-soaked rolled oats and whole wheat flour, combined with pumpkin puree and a handful of chocolate chips for flair, make these less-sugar muffins sweet yet wholesome.

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As I think about my favorite recipes using farm fresh ingredients, I'm realizing how often I feed my family muffins.  Muffins for breakfast.  Muffins for after school snack.  With dinner.  Muffins to school or work or social functions.  Pretty much if there's an occasion to bring food, I've probably made muffins.  In addition to this recipe, you can find all my muffin recipes, from Apple Cider Forgot the Sugar to Zucchini Nutella,  to your right in desktop view, or  down below in mobile view----> in my Recipe Index by Category.

I get this desire to feed the world muffins from my mom.  She has a couple of friends from school who made a muffin cookbook (Amazon affiliate link) that I refer to when I feel like making muffins but need inspiration. My current favorite muffin recipe, though, is cobbled together from my experiences making these waffles, these muffins, and always having buttermilk on hand. I love these muffins because they are whole grain, not too sweet, but have a little hit of chocolate that makes the kids think it's a treat. I've played with many iterations of this muffin base, using soaked oatmeal, but this recipe is the one that started it all. For Muffin Monday today, I've gone back to the beginning.

I know lately it seems that the switch has been flipped to All Things Pumpkin, and I am not usually one to jump on bandwagons, but my reason for using pumpkin is simple. I've got a lot of volunteer pumpkins on hand this Fall.  The garden has been crazy productive, thanks to the squirrels planting pumpkin seeds everywhere and my inability to deny food the right to grow wherever it shows up. Check here for how to Process a Pile of Pumpkins (and the mystery winterish squash in the background).

Green Tomato Bacon Jam

A savory freezer jam made with green tomatoes, sweet onion, and crispy bacon. This is AMAZING mixed with ground beef for burgers.

A note to the vegetarians who have visited this blog before: thank you for coming back! I beg your pardon, but today's vegetable recipe is really directed at the omnivores and carnivores that stop by (and thank you omnivores, if you've been here before, for returning!)
If you're new here, welcome! I blog about feeding my family seasonal produce from our CSA farm share, our garden, or good deals I find. I like to cook based on what I have available, so I created my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient (vegetable, or fruit, or fungus) which you can find in the pages across the top. For more recipes using green tomatoes, please check out my Green Tomato Recipe Collection.

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When I started this blog I didn't fully appreciate the versatility of a green, unripe, tomato. I liked to eat fried green tomatoes and hadn't ventured from there. Then a friend shared her Slow Cooker Green Tomato Garlic Chili recipe and I thought I'd dabble in more green tomato recipes. I've got 10 posted--so far!


I decided to make jam with green tomatoes from sheer curiosity. I saw sweet green tomato jam recipes, and savory red tomato and tomato bacon jam recipes, but I didn't find a savory green tomato bacon jam recipe. I started with this recipe and swapped out the red tomato for a bit larger volume of green tomatoes and onion.

If you grow tomatoes or know someone who does, keep this recipe in mind as the nights get cooler (as tomatoes don't ripen if it's too cool at night).  Sure, you can pick tomatoes and ripen them on the counter, but aren't you getting a wee bit satiated by ripe summer tomatoes?  Are you looking for a little something different?  My answers to those questions are yes and yes, so I'm sharing this today.


Make this jam when your tomato crop is in danger of succumbing to frost.  Store the excess jars in the freezer. Next time you're making burgers, mix 1/4 cup of jam in with a pound of ground meat (I've used beef and turkey so far) then continue with your usual burger making.  I prefer to make quarter pound burgers because I get plenty of protein and sure don't need the bigger burger, and I can make 1 pound of ground meat easily feed our family of 4 on burger nights.