My family is trying to eat less meat, so I was hoping to introduce a great vegetarian chili recipe. But it has to be kid friendly (nothing they will think is too weird, although tofu is OK)), and it should be pretty simple because I’m no gourmet cook.
First, there is no such thing as vegetarian chili.
Now that I’ve satisfied my inner purist…vegetarian chili doesn’t need tofu. there should be so many beans and veggies and textures that the tofu would be lost. An easy base can be made by dumping a can of black beans, a can of chickpeas, a can of kidney beans, a can of niblet corn into a crockpot. Add a diced onion or two, a can of chopped tomatoes, a metric buttload of chili powder, cumin and garlic, salt and pepper to taste and cook on high for a few hours. You can add all sorts of other stuff to taste. Got bell peppers? Dice and toss them in. Ditto celery, chili peppers, jicama, potatoes, whathaveyou. Modify to match whatever you have or like.
I agree: no tofu. No need for that in vegetarian chili. If you want some kind of meat substitute, those Morningstar crumbles would work better, but I far prefer vegetarian chili to be free of faux-meat products.
This recipe basically outlines my approach to vegetarian chili: make up for the meat with beans (I like black beans, like this recipe) and bell peppers. You can add whatever else you want, but my vegetarian chili base is beans-peppers-tomatoes. I like to throw in some poblanos and/or serranos in there as well.
Muir Glen’s vegetarian three bean chili.
It is awesome. I use two jalapenos instead of one, more pepper, and I add tons of Tabasco, but that’s just me. I half the recipe since it’s too big for the two of us. I make quinoa instead of rice cause quinoa’s a complete protein.
Enjoy!
A what now?
This is from memory (the recipe is at home) but I just made it last week so I think I have everything. I’ll double-check it tonight.
Saute half a chopped onion and 2 cloves garlic in olive oil over low heat.
Add about ¾ cup of textured soy protein (NOT tofu!), continue cooking until TSP is brown. Add enough water to soften TSP (not too much).
Add one can diced tomatoes, one can black beans, one large can kidney beans.
Add red wine (I usually pour in about half a wine glass worth)
One tablespoon dark molasses
One teaspoon each ground cumin, oregano, ground coriander, cayenne pepper.
One bay leaf.
2 chopped jalapeños, one chopped serrano pepper – with seeds or without to your level of desired heat (you can also put habaneros etc… if you REALLY like hot).
About a tablespoon of sugar.
One pound finely-chopped mushrooms.
Cook over med-low heat for at least an hour – 2 is better.
Salt to taste WHEN SERVING. It is easy to oversalt and then it doesn’t taste good
Serve with sour cream, chopped green onions and cheese!
If possible, make this the day before and refrigerate – the flavors really come together overnight.
Can’t emphasize this enough. My wife makes pretty good vegan chili, but she does it by “feel,” not recipe, sadly. However, it’s always better on Day 2. The spices and stuff have time to saturate the beans and chunky ingredients.
what I do is put the stuff in the crock pot a day or two before I actually cook it, it brings the flavors together in the same way but now its super tasty the first day…of course this means a big ass crock pot sitting in your fridge for a day or two.
Correction above - that should be one TABLESPOON of the spices, not teaspoon.
Here’s an extremely simple, family-friendly vegetarian chili recipe, for which I won third place at a chili cookoff at work.
Third Place Chili
1 lb. Morningstar Farms meatless crumbles, thawed and crumbled
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 can corn, undrained
1 can red beans *
1 can tomato paste
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 or 3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp. chili power
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
- You can also use black beans, or both
Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Dump all other ingredients into large pot or crock pot. Add onion and garlic. Simmer a couple hours.
I always get compliments on my chili, but it’s spicy. If you don’t want it too hot, cut back on the spices. All “cans” are the standard soup-can-sized cans:
3 cans drained beans (red, black, pinto, or kidney beans all work well)
1 can tomato paste
1 can diced tomato
1 can diced green chilis
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 onion, diced (use frozen if you want)
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1 pkg veggie crumbles (I prefer Morningstar Farms. They’re in the frozen section near the veggie burgers)
4 tsp chili powder
3 tsp ground red pepper
2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp cumin
Heat in a crock pot or a pot and heat (I usually do at least 90 minutes, up to 3 hours or so)
You don’t lack for choice in this thread. My veggie chili recipe comes from Jack Bishop’s, “A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen,” which is a really good cookbook, BTW. It’s major difference from the others is the use of tempeh as the “meat”, plus the use of chipotles in adobo sauce.
As for most chili recipes, vary the amount of the spices to individual preference.
Heat 2 tbsp of canola oil in Dutch oven. Add 2 finely chopped onions + 1/2 tsp. to the oil and let the onions soften (about 7 min or so.)
Add to the onions: 4 minced garlic cloves, 1 minced canned chipotle pepper, 2 tsp of the adobo sauce from the can, 2 tbsp of chili powder (love Penzey’s), 2 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander seed. Stir and cook until very aromatic, around 2 minutes. One step Bishop doesn’t mention, but that I add, is to heat the whole cumin and coriander seeds in a dry skillet until fragrant. Then grind the seeds and add them to the pot.
Add tempeh and cook until well coated with spices, about 2 minutes. Break up any chunks. (The tempeh forms a not half-bad ersatz hamburger).
Add: 2 15-oz cans of rinsed and drained red kidney beans, 2 14.5 oz cans of chopped tomatoes, 1 12 oz bottle of beer (I like Negra Modelo), and 1/2 tsp salt. Stir, bring to boil, then drop heat, cover and simmer until chili thick, about 30 minutes.
Serve with sour cream, lime wedges and tortillas or corn bread. And yes, this is much better on Day 2 (assuming it lasts that long).
Served it to a carnivore, who claimed to like it, but found the heat a bit much. Didn’t mention the tempeh at all, which I took as a plus.
My cooking contribution for my camp at Burning Man is chili for lunch. Since I have to make a double batch anyway (it’s a big camp) I make one with beef and the other with diced Boca Burgers. I call it my two’s chili. For each batch:
2 medium onions, diced and sauteed
2 16-oz can beans (1)
2 15-oz can tomato sauce
2 tbs chili powder (2)
2 tsp ground clove (3)
2 lbs ground beef, browned (4)
-or-
2 lbs (about a half box) Boca Burger, diced.
Dump everything together – don’t even drain the beans – and turn the flame as low as you dare to let it boil off the excess water and thicken up, a process of an hour or so. If it’s wind-free you can go pretty low and stir only occasionally. If it’s windy (more likely) you’ll be stirring almost constantly. I keep some masa on hand and throw in a handful to thicken it up if things aren’t well progressed by lunchtime. Give it about ten minutes to cook after adding the masa. I serve it with diced raw onion and shredded cheese on the side.
Both the carnivores and vegans eat it with enthusiasm and after the beef chili runs out, the meat eaters happily switch to the chili sin carne; virtually all of the flavor is in the spices anyway.
Notes:
(1) Pinto, black, kidney, whatever floats your boat; this is no place for purists. I’m not happy with using canned beans but the camp stoves aren’t really good for simmering overnight and the thought of six hours propane consumption for one meal is a no starter. I thought of a slow cooker but the genny is pretty close to maxed out, especially with the lights on at night. I’m told Coleman makes a propane-fired slow cooker that will last for hours on one of those bitty disposable cans and am trying to see if I can get a hold of one.
(2) I use Penzey’s medium which has a good chili flavor and moderate heat. I put crushed red peppers by the onions and cheese for those who like more punch.
(3) Strictly optional; it’s my “sekrit ingredient.” The concoction smells really clovey at first but about the time it is finished, the chili is all that remains, odor-wise. The clove is present as a subtle aftertaste, not like Cincinnati chili at all.
(4) I use coarse-ground if I can get it but it’s become increasingly unavailable lately.
http://www.fantasticfoods.com/productlist.aspx?catid=Vegetarian+Entrees
These guys make the only kind of vegetarian chili that I actually like. I think you just add kidney beans. It’s not weird, so kids should like it, and although it says “spicy”, it really isn’t.
All of their other products are delicious as well.
I’ve been a vegetarian most of my life.
On the question of which kind of beans to use, I prefer to use a bunch of different kinds. I just made a batch of chili this weekend where I used one can each of kidney, pinto, garbanzo, and green. It gives it a nice varied texture, and makes for a more interesting visual presentation as well.
I do this a lot, too. I’ll use kidney, black, and pinto usually.