Mexican Creations: Chilli Con Carne product reviews

WOW, I haven't had chilli con carne for many, many years now and remember it taking for ever to cook on the stove but not with this one. This stuff is amazing and we added hot chilli beans to half the mix because of the kids and a flatmate who can't handle spicy, hot food. While the none hot one was good, the hot one was better and will now be a regular meal in our household.

Many people commented on the picture (which I added to social media and now can't find) and said it must have taken ages to make. Wattie's have removed all the hard work in making this. The hardest bit is cutting the onions and browning them and the mince.

Here again I served it with rice purely because we didn't have corn chips and I wasn't going to get any. It's hard not to repeat yourself when talking about something this good and I have found in conversation with friends, I do just that. I personally wouldn't want to mess with an old fashioned classic meal but if anyone is keen to cook it for me using chicken or pork mince then I would be keen to try it and for those of you that love your vegies, perhaps you could just add them in, its a great way to get those fussy kids to eat.

Chilli Con Carne is a favourite in our house as its a great hearty meal for the winter. With both of us working full time I am all for meals that are quick and easy to prepare, so when I found out I was getting thing to review I jumped for joy.

Package arrived on my doorstep and I went straight to the supermarket for some mince and beans yum yum. Threw in some onions, browned the mince, in with the beans and threw in the chilli con carne mix. I was a wee bit confused when I first opened the packet and started pouring it out as it looked just like a salsa. I carried on and let it simmer for 20 minutes. The aroma smelt very spicy, which is fine with me as I love spicy, but not so good for the toddler.

After 20 minutes tea was cooked and I actually served it with some corn chips, a dollop of sour cream and a wee bit of cheese. Was very glad I served it with sour cream as I found it to be quite spicy. It wasn't intense spicy but enough to make the nose run! I enjoyed it but I don't think I would rush out and buy it again straight away as I found it was more like a salsa.

I have always loved chilli con carne so when I was offered Watties Creations simmer sauce to review from KIWIreviews I grabbed it. We don't have chilli con carne as the girls (4 and 5.5 years) don't like spicy food and my husband isn't keen on beans so I really miss it. I was unsure how this meal would go down with them but you never know unless you try.

I decided to leave out the beans and capsicum in the hope that they wouldn't scare the family off the meal before they tried it. I also served it on corn chips and topped it with sour cream to make it appeal more. For my husband and myself I added a dollop of hot salsa. The dish was so quick to make. After browning the mince and onion I stirred in the pouch of simmer sauce and left it for 20 minutes to simmer. I think my family were surprised they were called to the dinner table so soon.

The meal was a hit with the adults. My husband commented that the chilli con carne had a good kick to it (including the bits that didn't have the salsa on it. Unfortunately as I had thought it was too hot for the kids so their meal consisted of eating all the corn chips. I didn't complain though as Mum and Dad were able to finish off what the kids left behind. It is a dish we would be happy to have again if we ever have a kid-free night simply because it is such a quick meal.

I love my spice, and I love my chilli beans, so this dish was above average in my books. On the other hand, I am not a fan of the texture of cooked tomatoes, so when I usually cook this meal, I leave them out. Unfortunately for me, the sauce mix includes the chopped tomatoes. with respects to flavour, this meal was too tomatoey and it overpowered the sauce. There was a bit of spice heat to it, but it was more of an aftertaste than an accompaniment.

It was an easy meal to make, the most difficult part being 'browning the meat' (which is super freakin' easy). But for a dish that is categorised as a 2.5 chilli's out of a possible 3 on the hotness scale, I was rather disappointed with it.

In the end, I found the flavour more comparable to that of a salsa flavoured dip, and I ended up using it as such. I got bored of the meal half way through, and ended up eating it with corn chips, adding grated cheese, and sour cream. I effectively turning the mix into a nacho mix. I haven't trued the Nacho mix, in the Creations range, but I hope it isn't the same flavour as the con carne.

Fire roaring, freezing cold outside - what could be better than Watties Mexican Creations: Chilli Con Carne? It said it was warm to hot so that was perfect for tonight.

So easy to prepare fry onions and mince, then add some red beans followed by the sauce and simmer - so simple. While cooking you could smell the spiciness and we all expected it to be hot. Boiled some potatoes as well and it was a nice hearty meal. I was tempted to add some grated cheese but instead put sour cream on the girls meals just in case.

It looked yummy and to be honest tasted really good as well. Was not as spicy as I was expecting. I think it was a good combination of mashed potato and the mince. We agreed it would be fantastic in a burrito with some lettuce and grated cheese. It has that right texture and taste. The girls enjoyed it but both said they would not eat without the sour cream. Even Nachos would be ideal for this mince to add a little spice instead of salsa. It does recommend using Capsicum but I think any vegetable would just add that extra layer and make it more hearty. Extremely versatile.

I think the price is fantastic and we will definitely be purchasing this again. Really great for those cold nights and just so easy to make, even hubby could do it.

When I saw that the packet for the Watties Chilli Con Carne Simmer Sauce said "med/hot" I kept putting it to the back of the pile of things to review. As the pile got smaller, I decided that it had to come out of the cupboard to be reviewed. I am not a huge fan of hot and spicy food but I guess this was my opportunity to give something new a go.

As with all of the Watties simmer sauces, the package is appealing to the eye and the images of veges at the front of the pack look tasty. The ingredients list is nice and simple and it is very clear how to prepare the meal. I love the fact that the pack says that there are no added colours or preservatives as it makes me feel I am providing a good option for my family for dinner. With 90% vegetables, it doesn't leave much room for rubbish or fillers. Again, I like this.

On first taste, straight out of the pack, it was hot! I thought it was just bearable for me, so we decided we would give it a go in the mince for dinner. My husband had a taste and thought it was more medium than hot. That shows our difference in tastes!

We decided that it was unlikely that the kids would eat it, so we took out some of the basic mince and vege mix before we added the sauce. With my desire to make the dinner not too hot, we added lots of veges (grated courgette, spinach, and mushroom). We find that we usually add veges like this to mince anyway as it means that the kids get lots of hidden veges as well as the veges they get on the side! We also added the tin of kidney beans to our mince mix. In went the chilli con carne mix and I held my breath and hoped I would enjoy my dinner.

While it was cooking, there wasn't an overly strong smell through the house, so nothing to scare me off too badly at this stage. I had several ripe avocados in the fridge and decided that they would make a beautiful guacamole to go on top of the chilli con carne in order to calm it down a bit. I mashed up the avocados, added some tomato and lemon juice.

Was I going to ruin my perfectly good guacamole with putting it near my mince? Well, only time could tell. I carefully ate some mince with some guacamole, just in case it was too hot. To my surprise I enjoyed the taste. I tried the mince without the guacamole and I couldn't believe that I actually liked it. I think that the cooked version of the sauce was much milder than straight out of the pack. I would even go to say that it ended up more mild/medium than medium/hot.

After all of my procrastinating, I can't believe that this is actually a dish that I would consider having again! The children' weren't into it at all but the way we split the mince prior to adding the sauce made it manageable to allow the adults to have the spicier version and the kids to have plain mince and veges.

After being chosen by KIWIreviews to review a few of the Watties creations sauces recently, I had to go to the supermarket and purchase a few more of our favourites. As luck would have it, the day I went to the supermarket, the sauces were on special for $2.99. I was blown away by this, as at just $3.99 generally, they are really fantastic value for money.

Anyway, I picked up a couple of the sauces that we had already tried, and then picked out 3-4 more that we had yet to try. One of these was Chilli Con Carne. Oh my gawd, I am so glad I did. This has got to be my most favourite one yet! It is absolutely divine. Thick, full of flavour, and so so yum.

I have never made chilli con carne before, nor have I ever eaten it, so I read the packet in the supermarket, and then purchased everything that the packet called for. This was one I was going to have to follow to the letter, as I did not wish to muck it up, and waste a good sauce. Like all the other mixes, it is easy to follow, and easy to prepare. I loved that my house had the most wholesome and yummy smells wafting through it while this was cooking, and I really could not wait till dinner time to try it out.

In fact it smelled so good, I did not wait till the meal was dished up, I was caught in the kitchen sneaking it before it was ready. It is sooooo yum! I absolutely love it. It is hot as the packet says, but not so hot that I had to stop scoffing it. I had to stop scoffing it, because if I did not there would have been none left for the rest of my family. I gave each of my kids a wee tea-spoon full each, before dishing it up, just in case it was to hot for them, so that I could add something to lesson the heat. But nope, my kids love hot and spicy, and they all gave two thumbs up for this. I did however decide in the end to serve it up with sour cream that needed to be used. This was a good choice, and the sour cream, just enhanced the flavour more.

I love this chilli con carne, and am so glad I bought it. It was in fact so so good, that I have since purchased it again. I am even looking forward to winter, when we can light the fire, and settle in with a bowl of this delightful, full of flavour, and extremely tasty chilli.

The other night I decided we would have Mexican for dinner. We had a packet of this Chilli Con Carne in the cupboard, and I must admit I was a little worried about the heat in this one. My family enjoy a bowl of nachos with cheese and sour cream, but they aren't big on a lot of Mexican heat. So it was going to be interesting!

I chopped up an onion, and browned that off with about 500 grams of mince. I added about 1/3 of the packet as I felt that it would be plenty to get the flavour. As it turns out, I was right (for our tastes). I plated the Chilli Con Carne on two handfuls of nachos. And on top I added some rice, grated cheese and some chopped tomato.

My husband and I ate the bowls of Con Carne. I did find the taste of the sauce to have a real hot bite to it from the chilli. My husband took ages to eat his, and he is usually a pretty quick eater. The kids hardly touched the meal at all. So I would say that this sauce really didn't suit 3/4 of our family's taste buds. I would eat it again, but there would be little point us eating it again as a family. It was just too hot for the rest of them.

I'm not a big on spice person, but I got this to review so needed to give it a go.

My first concern with this was the spice factor, medium to high spice level when I'm more of a mild kinda girl. My husband likes things nice and hot and my kids prefer no spice at all so we decided our first use with the sauce would be a meal just for my husband and I. I decided to make some nachos with it, that way I could at least pop a tonne of sour cream on mine and hopefully be able to eat it. My husband really enjoyed it but needed some sour cream with it, with a tonne of sour cream on mine I was able to eat it and it had a nice taste.

The next night, having only used half the sauce for the previous meal, I decided to make pies for dinner, bulking out the sauce with cheese, mixed veges, tinned tomatoes and some sour cream to make it creamier and eliminate the heat without taking away the taste. It made a nice meal but the sauce wasn't at it's best with stuff added to limit the spice. The good thing about the sauce is that it had enough for two meals, so saves money (especially when at my local it's only $2.99).

Not my cup of tea but good value for money.

Oh, I do so love a good chilli... and this makes an awesome chilli! I admit, I don't do my chilli in the traditional manner - with kidney beans - I often cheat and just tip a can of baked beans in, because they tend to be softer to chew so the kids are less likely to kick up extra fuss. I also make my chilli a lot milder than I like, because of the spice-heat preferences of my family... so when I tasted a little of the sauce out of the packet, I was overjoyed... because I knew there was no way on earth I could fairly tone this down to a level they would tolerate, without totally throwing the review assessment off track - and work comes first!

After browning some mince and frying up some roughly chopped red onions and some celery, I emptied the sauce into the frypan, lowered the heat and left it to simmer for a while, getting an occasional stir to prevent burning. Just before it was fully ready, I threw in a handful of grated cheddar cheese and gave it a good stir to mix it in well - I like my chilli to have a bit of cheese in it, adds a nice flavour. I had to fight hard to break old habits, and add in a handful of assorted herbs, garlic, etc, instead trusting the sauce to be all it needed to be. At the last minute, in went a can of baked beans - the cheapest on the shelves - there's no way I would eat them any other way, because the sauce they come in is horrible and watery, but it's an easy way to get a heapin' helpin' of beans into the meal for under a dollar. I just have to be sure to drain them well before I add them.

I dished up about a third of the resulting mince into a bowl, added a generous handful of baked corn chips, and sat down to experience what was to prove to be one of the best packet chilli dishes I have ever experienced. Flavour, enough to allow me to taste everything but not so much as to be overwhelming... Heat, enough to know this is a chilli but not so much as to kill the flavour... Texture, so that eating this is a symphony of mouth-feel and not just eating a thick soup as you get at a particular fast-food chain I used to frequent.

The next morning, I reheated some of the leftovers and popped it on unbuttered toast, topped with a half-handful of grated cheese and a couple of poached eggs - all the flavour was still there, but some of the spice-heat had disappeared... which was a good thing because in hindsight I don't think I could have handled the full scorching delight as my first meal of the day. Lunch was the last of the chilli in a bowl, topped with a generous helping of Fressure Foods Avocado Spread in leiu of sour cream. This did wonders to remove the last of the spice-heat, while retaining almost all of the flavour. It would have been brilliant in a wrap with salad.

Overall, this is, at this stage, my top favourite from the Mexican Creations range and will be one I keep a couple of on hand for "just me" meals, since no-one else was brave enough to try it after seeing me sweating and grinning like a loon the night before. Highly recommend this one to other 'hot stuff" eaters.

The chilli con carne was the one Wattie's Creations I received to review that I was unsure about. All the others were mild/medium and this one was medium to hot. So I made sure I had a back up plan just in case.

I made the chilli con carne up with just onions and mince in it and had it as nachos. To being with I made it up to the directions on the packet and then gave it a taste test. I found it a little on the spicy side so drained a tin of chopped tomatoes and threw them in the mix. It brought it down just enough so it still had a spice to it but wasn't burn your mouth hot.

After adding my own touch to get it to the right spice for us it was perfect. Was a great easy to prepare meal after a busy day. I love how the Wattie's Creations usually just require to brown, add the sauce then simmer. We had lots of leftovers so the next night I baked potatoes added the chill con carne threw on some grated cheese and heated in the oven. I think the chilli con carne is one of the more versatile flavourings and you are only limited by your imagination as to what you could do with it. I think next time I will use the leftovers in home made mince pies.

The first thing that comes to mind with this meal is YUM! I can't believe that I'd never tried this before. My husband also really likes it which is awesome because typically he's a meat and 2 veges type of guy and it's very very hard to find any meal (especially one with rice) that he'll eat, let alone like but I think this meal has just the right combination of meat, sauce and veges that it passes the husband test.

We looked at the directions on the back of the packet and found them incredibly easy to follow. It called for optional kidney beans and green capsicum so we decided to add the kidney beans and omit the green capsicum because I'm not a huge fan but I personally don't think it was needed at all because it tastes great without it. Once it was all cooked we served it up with the recommended rice. The initial taste, to our sensitive mouths, was very spicy so we added some plain yoghurt and mixed that through and it was amazing! And it is such a versatile meal, it could easily be served with potatoes, couscous, rice or even nacho chips and you can add any veges you want to it too.

We will definitely be adding this to the shopping list for next week so we can try it out with nacho chips.