Healthy Chili Dog Tater Tot Casserole

I’ve spoken at length about my love for all things chili, cheese, hot dogs, and tater tots across my blog. So it only makes sense that I brought them all together into one savory, cheesy tater tot casserole. And a healthy tater tot casserole, at that.

It’s super easy to make. For the chili dog filling, it’s as simple as adding things to a skillet. And the tots portion is even easier since the recipe calls for frozen tots.

Healthy Tater Tot Casserole Ingredients

Let’s quickly run through everything you’ll need and touch on potential modifications or substitutions.

4-Ingredient Chili Dog Filling

Okay, the 4-ingredient part isn’t entirely true because you’ll need spices. But at the chili’s core, you’ll need four things:

• black beans
• tomato sauce
• chopped onion
• some type of lower calorie hot dog or sausage

I honestly feel there’s enough flavor here without adding anything. But if Flavortown is your ultimate destination, I’ve included some spices like chili and garlic powder, cumin, black pepper, and a bit of ground mustard to the recipe card below.

I’ll also add that you could skip the black beans, tomato sauce, and spices and use a can of your favorite chili instead. If you’re short on time and ingredients, Hormel’s Turkey Chili has phenomenal macros. 

If you love this casserole and want more chili options, check out my Instant Pot turkey chili, high protein kid friendly chili, or slow cooked Texas chili recipes.

The Tots

You’ll need frozen tots of some kind. I chose frozen cauliflower tots from Green Giant, but you could definitely roll with frozen tater tots or even sweet potato tots. There’s not a huge difference in macros between cauliflower and tater tots, though the cauli tots are a bit lower fat.

If you’d like to make your own tots, I have a solid recipe for low carb cauliflower tots you may want to check out. Or you could use something like roasted sweet potatoes like I used in my sweet potato nachos.

The Cheese

The recipe calls for fat free shredded cheddar. I find this at Walmart and occasionally at Kroger, but it can be a bit harder to find. If you have trouble, you can just use a reduced fat version.

For comparison, the fat free cheddar has 180 calories, 36 grams of protein, 8 grams of carbs, and 0 grams of fat in the entire recipe. A reduced fat cheddar would have 360 calories, 28 grams of protein, 4 grams of carbs, and 24 grams of fat.

That may seem like a big difference but when you split it across six servings, that’s only a 30-calorie difference per serving. Not to mention, you could get away with using less cheese with a reduced fat or full fat cheese.

All right, that’s it for ingredients. The rest of the recipe is simple assembly. You’ll find the full recipe card below.

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Healthy Chili Dog Tater Tot Casserole

Yield: 6 servings

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Frozen tots smothered with a simple, low calorie chili dog filling and shredded cheese. 

Print

Ingredients

• 16 oz bag Frozen Cauliflower Veggie Tots, or tater tots
• 1 C (112g) Fat Free Shredded Cheddar, or your choice of cheese

Chili Dog Filling

• 3 Turkey Hot Dogs, I used Johnsonville Turkey and Cheddar Sausages
• 1 C (100g) Yellow Onion, chopped
• 15 oz can Black Beans
• 8 oz can Tomato Sauce
• 2 tsp Chili Powder
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 tsp Ground Mustard
• 1/2 tsp Cumin
• 1/2 tsp Black Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 450F and spray a baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Add the frozen tots to the baking dish. Bake for 15-20 minutes or according to the directions on the tots packaging. (If you're using different tots, adjust the oven temperature accordingly.)
2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the chopped onion. Cook until the onion begins to soften.
3. While the onion cooks, slice the sausages or hot dogs into bite size pieces. Add them to the skillet and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. When the sausages have browned, add the can of beans, tomato sauce, and spices to the skillet.
5. Bring the mixture to a boil before reducing the heat to simmer until the tots are done.
6. Cover the tots with the chili dog mixture and shredded cheese. Bake for an additional 2-3 minutes to melt the cheese. (Be careful to not burn the fat free cheese. Full fat cheese melts better and can withstand a bit longer in the oven.) 

Notes

• Each serving has 5 Smart Points.
• Here are the macros for the chili mixture and cheese only in case you want to use different tots: 1,035 calories, 95 grams of protein, 110 grams of carbs, and 22 grams of fat
• If you'd like to know the weight of each serving, weigh the baking dish before starting. Weigh the entire recipe after cooking and subtract weight of the baking dish from the total weight. Divide that weight by six for the weight of each serving.
• You could replace the chili mixture for a can of turkey chili or your favorite canned chili without any issues. 
• If you have trouble finding fat free cheddar, use reduced fat. Reduced fat only adds 30 calories per serving. 
• If you wanted an even more macro friendly recipe for tots, check out my high protein cauliflower tots recipe.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 6 Servings Serving Size: 1 Serving
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 260Total Fat: 7gCarbohydrates: 31gProtein: 18g

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