Turkey and bean tamale pie from Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals (page 143) by Melissa Clark

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Notes about this recipe

  • Eat Your Books

    Can substitute any ground meat for ground turkey.

  • jennifer_vszvd1 on May 08, 2026

    This was really easy and I’d make it again, but it was very dry. Another can of tomatoes may solve the problem. This could also benefit from the chile simmering for several hours to develop flavor, but that would defeat the whole easy dinner concept.

  • vikingcook on April 27, 2026

    Too much trouble for the result. Not great

  • ozzzzzz22 on April 01, 2026

    This has good effort/reward AND cost/reward ratios, which makes it perfect for weeknights. It also looks lovely and comforting if you get the top golden brown so it's solid for having company over too. You can really eyeball most of the quantities (e.g., I think I used larger-than-called-for cans of beans and diced tomatoes and I definitely didn't measure the chilli powder or cumin) and it'll still turn out great - just taste and season as you go. Yes the chilli does look a bit dry at first but once it cooks for a while things break down and moisten. I've made this a handful of times now and it's always gotten rave reviews. I love it with a big dollop of Greek yogurt on top.

  • mdagl on February 25, 2026

    Really good! Felt like the cornbread to chili ratio was a bit off; more cornbread than we felt like the chili needed. Similar recipe concept to Molly Yeh’s Baharat chili and cornbread, but we decided we like Yeh’s version a bit more and will make that one instead moving forward.

  • lindsey_5xsrit on February 18, 2026

    Really solid recipe! Only change I made was using a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes instead of the 14oz + made the full recipe in a cast iron skillet.

  • jfleissn on February 09, 2026

    Well, I made an embarrassing mistake with the cornbread part of this recipe, so I won't comment on that. But we liked the chili very much! I was a bit skeptical about the idea of a quick chili, but it had very nice depth of flavor, well punched up by the bright notes of cilantro, scallion, and jalapeno (our pepper was quite large). We used a small 4 and a half quart dutch oven and that worked fine. Very nice with yogurt on top; I like the idea of adding corn too. It did look dry and so, heeding others' advice, I added the juice from an additional 28 oz can of tomatoes which we were using just the tomatoes from the following day. Yum!

  • pattyatbryce on November 24, 2025

    This was a good dinner. We used beef instead of turkey because it is the weekend before US Thanksgiving. We'll have more turkey than we can handle soon enough. Next time, I would use leftovers of my regular chili recipe and then top as written. Her intention was likely to make a fast chili, but to me, it is worth a long cook for good chili. Other changes: I added a cup of corn to the chili because I needed to cook it and used a bit more cheddar because I like it.

  • Beck001 on November 10, 2025

    Added more tomatoes and still wasn’t quite enough as too dry for our tastes. I think this is a decent base recipe that you can adjust for your family tastes. (Our kids would have preferred more beef). Also the size of the dutch oven seems a bit off - can use smaller one.

  • tarae1204 on September 27, 2023

    I made this recipe with ground turkey and pinto beans, as suggested. Needing to make it gluten free, I used a boxed gluten free cornbread mix, adding in some fresh kernels from two ears of corn and topping it with grated sharp cheddar. It came out very well using a boxed mix.

  • PinchOfSalt on December 05, 2022

    Made this as written, using two of the suggested substitutions: ground beef for the ground turkey and canned red kidney beans for the canned pinto beans. The chili portion tasted great but it had almost no sauce component, even just after adding the tomatoes (including their juice) and the beans. The recipe clearly anticipated that that initial mixture would be wetter than mine was. I was using Muir Glen diced tomatoes. I added some water to keep the chili mixture from completely drying out during baking. I'll also observe that there is absolutely no need to use a 5-6 quart dutch oven for this recipe. The 4-quart Dutch oven that I used for baking was larger than needed. It also was too wide for the cornmeal batter to cover the surface of the chili. In fact, one might consider ignoring the one vessel theme of the book and making the chili in a skillet and doing the final bake in a large casserole (at least 2.5 quarts).

  • bernalgirl on November 17, 2022

    I grew up with tamale pie so I adjusted the filling to what I’m used to: added Mexican oregano, diced peppers (green and red) in equal parts to diced onion, Rotel diced tomatoes with chiles, doubled the beans (happened to have made black beans), and added 1 cup frozen corn. I love this topping although next time I’d put the cheese under the topping to add some cheesy goodness to the casserole. My family loved it as written here garnished with sour cream, chopped scallions and cilantro, and Valentina hot sauce.

  • Lepa on November 03, 2022

    This was the first time I've had tamale pie and I really enjoyed it. Perfect food for a chilly, rainy day! This will be a repeat.

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