HEB Weeknight Winners: Holly Jolly Chili & Tamales

Growing up in San Marcos, just on the cusp of South Texas, chili and tamales was a cold-snap/Christmastime dinner tradition. We often ate this combo on Christmas Eve with old family friends or after decorating my grandparents’ Christmas tree in Lockhart. My grandmother would buy tamales from a lady who went to her church, and her chili would simmer for hours in a big pot on the stove while we carefully pulled cherished old Christmas ornaments from ancient boxes brought down from the attic. I loved opening a corn husk and popping a steaming hot tamale on to my plate, usually with a little chili and cheese ladled over the top. Fritos were always a part of this meal in case anyone wanted to make a little side Frito Pie. Another typical side with chili and tamales the grownups loved (and I learned to love later) was champiñones en escabeche. Whenever we went down to Nuevo Laredo to shop, we would stop into a grocery store for Mexican vanilla and cans of these wonderful pickled button mushrooms, carrots,  jalapenos and onions. The spicy/tangy combination of the pickled veggies is a great contrast to the richness of the tamales and chili. We don’t go shopping in Laredo anymore, and I haven’t been able to find champiñones here in town, but pickled jalapenos and rajas make a decent substitute.

On a recent busy weekday night when temperatures had plummeted to the mid-30s, I put together a quick version of chili and tamales for my family. Here’s what I did and here’s what we thought.

In the Grocery Cart:

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HEB Mi Comida Tamales de Pollo, $4.98 for a dozen.

HEB Mi Comida Tamales de Frijoles, $4.98 for a dozen.

HEB Fully Cooked Texas Style Beef Chili, $5.98.

HEB Sliced Jalapenos and Rajas, 82¢

HEB Medium Cheddar Cheese, $2.38

HEB Lightly Salted Corn Chips, $1.98

Putting it Together

Have you ever steamed tamales? It’s really easy to do, and I think they taste so much better this way than microwaved. Fill a big pot with a little water, and put one of those handy-dandy vegetable steamer baskets in the bottom of the pot. If water is coming through the holes of your steamer, you have too much water. Drain a little off. Line your tamales, folded shuck side down, around the perimeter of the pot so that they’re all leaning on the sides of the pot and put on the lid. Start your water boiling, and keep it at a gentle rolling boil. The directions on the package said to steam them for about fifteen minutes, so that’s what I did.

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Meanwhile, I grated some of the cheddar cheese and dumped a can of pickled jalapenos into a bowl. When the tamales had about three minutes left to steam, I put the chili in the microwave and cooked it for 2 ½ minutes, per the package directions. This was a super-fast meal–everything was ready and dinner was served in about twenty minutes.

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Do we have a Weeknight Winner?

Sadie (age 7) says:

“I am diggin’ on the chicken tamales! Thanks for making me try this!”

It’s true. I forced my daughter to try a chicken tamale. Sadie wanted just the bean tamales on her plate, but I made her try one of each. She went back for two more chicken tamales before dinner was over! I couldn’t get her to try the chili.

Eleanor (age 10) says:

“The chicken tamales are more flavorful than the bean tamales, but I like them both. The chili is okay–I like to scoop it up with my corn chips.”

Eleanor and the rest of us agreed that the “lightly salted” version of HEB corn chips were much better than the regular name-brand version, Fritos. Fritos can be greasy and too salty. HEB has created the perfect snacking/Frito Pie chip with this product.

Kelly says:

The tamales were definitely a weeknight winner. My HEB was out of the pork tamales, so I would like to try them next time, along with the jalapeno cheese variety. I liked these tamales because they are small, and I thought the ratio of filling to masa was just about right. I wasn’t a big fan of the chili. I expected something called “Texas Style Beef Chili” to be, well, beefier. This is a saucy, tomato-y chili without a lot of spice to it. While it made a fine topping for the tamales, I don’t think I’d want to eat a bowl of it. I do think it would be a good topping for hot dogs, and Ryan thought it would be good for Frito pie. I also think it would be a good addition to queso dip. The next time I prepare this, I might dump the chili into a sauce pan and heat it up that way. It seemed to cool off very quickly in the microwaveable container that I cooked it in.

Ryan says:

The chicken tamales had a good flavor, but the masa was a little dense. The chili seemed more like spaghetti sauce than chili, but not in a bad way. I liked the jalapenos–they have a good texture and nice warmth, without being too hot.

Time & Money

Time from packages to table: About 20 minutes. Super speedy!

Cleanup Time: Almost nonexistent. I served the chili from the microwavable container, so that went into the recycling bin after I rinsed it out. I had a few dishes to wash, but it was a cinch.

Cost per person (family of 4): $3.49 per person, since we only ate a dozen tamales (I refrigerated the rest–the girls like to warm them up in the microwave for a little after school snack), half of the cheese, and half the bag of corn chips.

I paid for all of these HEB groceries with my hard-earned money. The opinions in this post are my own (and my family’s).

Do you have a special holiday meal tradition?

Kelly
Kelly lives in Terrell Hills and is a full-time working mom of 4 in a never-a-dull-moment blended family. Her twin stepsons, Eric & Grant, are high school juniors. Her daughters, Eleanor and Sadie, are in junior high and elementary school. She and her husband, Ryan, are both attorneys. When she is not working and "air-traffic controlling" her busy brood, she and her family enjoy exploring San Antonio and the surrounding area.