White Bean Chili.
Our family loves a bowl of chili on a cold winter night. Our favorite used to be the traditional chili with the basic ground beef. Now that I’m trying to eat less meat and finding more vegetarian dishes, my goal was to see what I could create with my favorite white beans. I’ve tried it with ground turkey too. That’s very tasty, but this time I wanted to go totally vegetarian.
That’s how this recipe came about. Our whole family loves it! It’s very rewarding to find new recipes that satisfy the cravings yet are healthier for us.
It’s so easy using the crock pot, and you can spice it up as much as you like. If you like it creamy, you can add a splash of sour cream. I love the look of the lighter chili with white beans, though sometimes I’ll use half white and half red.
The soy crumbles worked great, giving it the look of traditional chili, with added body and texture. It’s very filling on its own, but sometimes we’ll serve it with a dinner salad or fresh cornbread. Any way you like it, it tastes so good! It’s our new go-to Chili recipe now.
Rating
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Serves: 8
- 1 bag soy crumbles
- 1 pound white beans
- 4 to 5 cans vegetable broth, or equivalent
- 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 sweet onion, diced
- 3 to 5 cloves garlic, diced
- 1 jalapeño pepper, diced
- 1 package chili seasoning
- Or Instead of package use:
- ½ teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon oregano, parsley, salt, pepper, and chili powder
- Rinse and soak beans overnight.
- In the morning, drain, rinse and place in crock pot.
- Saute onion and garlic in hot olive oil until softened.
- Add diced chili and cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add 1 can of soup and the chili seasoning package (or loose spices) heat through.
- Pour in crockpot over drained beans.
- Add 3 more cans of vegetable broth or equivalent.
- Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours, adding soy crumbles only for the last hour.
- If you prefer thinner chili add an additional can of soup.
Everyone has their own favorite kind of chili. It’s so adaptable, you can add all sorts of ingredients to it. Here are just a few ideas:
- Green or red peppers chopped.
- Slice olives, green or black.
- Celery slices.
- Cauliflower bites (throw some in–you won’t even notice).
- Shredded beef.
- Steak chunks
- Ground Beef
- Ground turkey
- Shredded chicken
- Grilled chicken chunks
- Soy crumbles
- Soy chicken bites
- A variety of bean, including kidney, red, white.
- Diced tomatoes
- Mushrooms
- Chopped spinach
Any way you fix it, you have a filling, satisfying dish that tastes great for lunch or for dinner. It’s quick to assemble too.
If you want to save more time, don’t sauté the onion and garlic. Just toss all the ingredients in the crock pot and let it simmer all day. Do be sure to soak the beans overnight though still.
Any vegetables you add can be chopped the night before too, in order to save time in the morning. If you want to get them done super fast, try chopping them in a blender, like the Ninja Master Prep. It only takes seconds–literally–to chop onion, peppers, and everything else.
If you’d like to read more about my favorite appliance for chopping, blending, and crushing, you can read my review on the Ninja Master Prep Professional.
A Programmable Slow Cooker
This crock-pot will hold plenty of chili for your whole family. Even though I cook for smaller numbers now, it is still nice to have a big pot. Then I can freeze whatever I fix for another time. I love that you can even program this one. That’s a bonus if you want or need to adjust temps or start it after you’ve left for work. It would work well if you are doing steel cut oats in the crock pot for breakfast too!
The Ninja Master Prep Works Fast for Chopping
Tired of chopping veggies? Try the Ninja. It will chop onions in less than 10 seconds. No more tears! I imagine people get tired of hearing me talk about my Ninja, but it is so effective on everything I have tried, that I can’t say enough about it. Slushes, cutting butter into flour for pies, even grinding coffee, the Ninja handles it!
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