Hi friends, who's got a good vegetarian/vegan chili recipe? After eating mostly @strawberry 's veggie soup for days and enjoying myself I'm trying significantly cut down on meat. That being said, how do you make a good meatless chili? I've tried meat substitutes like beyond beef but those were super dry, and one squash based recipe was extremely bland and not really chili. I currently only own some pans, one small pot (like 4 inches tall) and a crock pot.

I already don't like cheese or sour cream and don't really use butter so that makes the vegan part easier.

  • alexandra_kollontai [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    The most important thing in chilli is spices. Use the right spices and it doesn't really matter whether you have meat or not because you still have the main flavour. I like using brown lentils or beans instead.

    Fry an onion, add your chillis and spice selection, put chopped tomatoes in saucepan, put lentils/beans in, put vegetables in, let it cook for a little bit. Put on rice at the same time. Pretty straightforward. Let me know if you want a detailed recipe!

    please note: I'm not good at cooking by any means I just make food I enjoy to live

    • AllCatsAreBeautiful [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I would love a detailed recipe! The one thing Id like more than anything is to know how long to cook it for. Most of the recipes suggested use a pot when all I own is a crockpot, so I don't know how to adjust the time. Im also not great at cooking so utility-recipes are great!

      • alexandra_kollontai [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        If you're using a crockpot it'll be on the order of like five hours. BUT, since it's vegan, you can mostly wing it. Unlike meat, all of the ingredients are safe to eat even uncooked. This means you can experiment with the cooking time without fear. If you're happy with your first attempt, no need to change anything.

        Here's a recipe I've used:

        • 1 chopped onion
        • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
        • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
        • 1 teaspoon tumeric
        • X chopped chillies
        • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
        • 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
        • 1 vegetable stock cube
        • 2 cans of brown lentils (drained and rinsed)
        • 1 can of kidney beans

        You could follow the method I outlind before, or I guess you could just add everything to the crockpot and see what comes out. Good luck!

        • AllCatsAreBeautiful [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Just made this recipe and it's delicious. I didn't add enough spice but I think that's because I added the wrong type of chili pepper (there were like 9 different types of dried chili at my supermarket.) Also I forgot to buy tortilla chips so I'm eating it with potato chips which makes me feel like a fool, except I also accidentally used low sodium beans so the extra salt is nice.

          • alexandra_kollontai [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Awesome, I'm glad it worked out for you! Here's a couple tips I may bestow upon you if you try it again:

            • Chop up a bell pepper and add it as an awesome non-spicy textured ingredient!
            • Add multiple types of chilli, they probably combine really well!
            • Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the tomatoes and mix with a spoon until they stop bubbling. (You might need to do this while it's hot for the reaction to occur.) Baking soda nullifies the sharp acid of tomatoes, improving the flavour in my opinion - but also decreases the effectiveness of any spices you add, so you'll need to counter by increasing spice levels about 25%.
            • Consider red lentils instead, no particular advantage to them, they're just different. Be aware the cooking method is totally different since red lentils are often bought dry and you have to rinse them and soak them. (The crockpot time will do the soaking for you, no need to soak manually first, only rinse.)

            That's all the tips I have, let me know if it goes well for you!