Hearty Vegan Chili

I've never been particularly fond of chili and had never made it before but for some reason felt like making it. Originally it was supposed to be a 3 bean chili but it turned out to be 2. Seriously this chili came out so delicious I can't help but keep eating it repeatedly, as soon as this batch is done I'm making another one. When I made it I honestly didn't bother to measure because I like to just add how much I feel but I did try to make a recipe with a guideline at least. So this chili was like a 2 step process but still not that difficult at all. 

Step one and Ingredients: Bag of red kidney beans or any beans of your liking 

Soak your beans in a bowl filled water overnight. Next day boil the beans in a pot of water until tender. I only used half a bag of beans and that was plenty, then I froze the other half. Now since I was using one canned bean that was already cooked (black beans) I only worried about cooking the other ones.

Step two and Ingredients: Carrots, Potatoes, Celery, Corn, Tomato/es

Use as many potatoes and carrots you'd like (I used more carrots than potatoes).I put my potatoes and carrots to boil in a pot till tender and cut them up into bite size pieces (later on I cut them smaller for the chili).  Boiling the beans, potatoes and carrots before will just cut down on the amount of time that you have to leave the chili cooking. 

When you have those things boiling you are going to cut up your celery, tomatoes and corn (I used canned corn).

Step three and Ingredients: Beans, adobo seasoning, chili powder, garlic, onion, tomato sauce, paprika, tumeric, sazon, sofrito, lemon juice, oil

Taking a big pot because this makes a lot I started to add the seasonings. I coated the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of oil (your choice which one) and turned the stove on low. 

Then I added in about 1 table spoon of chili powder, 1/2 packet of sazon seasoning, 1 tablespoon of tumeric, 1 tablespoon of paprika, 1/2 of an onion (cut it up as small as you like or leave it big like I did)3 cans of tomato sauce, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 1/2 tablespoons of garlic (We grind our whole garlic cloves), Your cooked beans and about 3-4 tablespoons of sofrito.

When I precook beans I always store them with the water that they were boiled with so I only had to use a little water if needed but this liquid was enough. 

Now to make sofrito which is a seasoning you will need these ingredients:

 1/2 red bell pepper roughly chopped

 1/2 green bell pepper roughly chopped

 1/2-3/4 cup fresh cilantro (depends on your taste) 

1/2-3/4 cup recao (culantro)  

2-3 garlic cloves

 1/2 onion roughly chopped

We make big batches so you can double the recipe or halve it. Store it in the fridge or freeze it to keep for a couple of months. You can make sofrito with using both peppers or rather use one or the other. Red pepper cilantro is nice to cook with beans.

Step 4 and Ingredients: Corn, Potatoes, Carrots, Tofu

Throw in the precooked and cut potatoes and carrots into the pot. Taking some extra firm silken tofu I crumbled it into the mixture as well ( you can decide how much you want to put in). Throw in the corn you either cut up or got from the can. Also I threw in a large tomato to thicken the chili up a bit and give it a stronger flavor.

Stir everything in and cover the pot. Make sure to keep it on low heat so that it simmers slowly. Also make sure to check on it as it thickens because you don't want it to burn. So once you see that it starts getting a little thicker check on it more often than if it was watery still. 

Let that cook for about 1 hour and 30 minutes (or until its to the consistency that you want), then turn the heat off. The sauce should taste like seasoned beans, I could definitely pick up the sofrito flavors. If you made a big batch you could save some of it and freeze it and you already have beans cooked to serve with rice if you please. 

Step 5

So taking some cheddar cheese (Daiya) depending on how much you make pour however much cheese you want in it but not too much because we don't want it cheesy. I mixed in the cheese only after serving individual bowls and for each one I put in about less than 1 tablespoon into them. Also I sprinkled in some nutritional yeast about 1-2 tablespoons and added about 3-4 tablespoons of flaxseed.

Next I took some sour cream (Tofutti) and again mixed it in individually about 1 teaspoon per bowl. If you are mixing it into the pot you wont need more than about 1- 1 1/2 tablespoons. After adding sour cream the chili instantly thickens and all the flavors come out.

I sliced up some avocado and placed it atop my chili. 

The rich flavors in this dish is astounding, you can taste almost everything and it works wonderfully. This is definitely a keeper in my book and I am going to keep making it through the winter. Everyone loved it all carnivores and all. This is such a hearty meal in itself and so fulfilling! 

 Hope you enjoy it!