Twenty-Minute Four-Bean Vegetarian Chili.

Twenty-Minute Four-Bean Vegetarian Chili

by Emily Malone

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: up to an hour (can vary)

Ingredients (4-6 servings)

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cups bell pepper, diced (I used frozen pepper strips!)
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can red kidney beans
• 1 can great northern beans
• 1 can white kidney beans
• 2 cans fire roasted tomatoes
• 2 cups veggie broth (or water + bouillon cube)
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon sea salt (more to taste)

Instructions

In a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, sauté the chopped onion in a little bit of olive oil. While the onion cooks, chop your peppers. To save time, I actually used a bag of frozen bell peppers (from Trader Joe’s) and just diced the frozen pieces. A big time saver on busy weeknights, and good for using in something soft like soup.  Add the peppers and continue to cook until thawed (if frozen) and browned.

Rinse and drain all the beans, and then add to the pot.

Add two cans of tomatoes too – make sure you use fire roasted tomatoes with some sort of chili or heat. If you choose to sub in plain canned tomatoes, you’ll want to increase the amounts of spices and add a little extra heat (jalapeno or cayenne).

Add the spices, salt, and veggie broth and give everything a good stir. Turn the heat to medium and let the chili simmer. At this point the chili is pretty much ready to eat, although the longer you let it simmer, the better (an hour really deepens the flavor).

Another option is to throw all of these ingredients into a crock pot and let it cook all day long. It’s a very simple chili, but that’s the whole point. Something easy you can throw into a pot and then walk away – come back, and dinner is served!

Way too easy, and oh so comforting.  Is it just me or does chili feel incomplete without cornbread?  The only thing I love as much as soups are DIPS, so it makes perfect sense that I like to dip things in my soup. 

This particular dipper will be shared with you tomorrow (Update: recipe is here!).  I find double-recipe posts to be overwhelming and disorganized – sorry to make you wait!

I promise it is more than worth it.  I am polishing off the last bit of leftovers for lunch as I’m typing up this post, and I’m missing it already.  Good thing it is so easy to make another batch!

Enjoy!