VEGETARIAN CHILI | a healthy, one-pot vegetarian recipe you'll love!

Today, I'm excited to share the ultimate vegetarian chili recipe with you. It's a dinner sensation loaded with an assortment of healthy vegetables, three different kinds of beans, and earthy, rich spices. It's a wonderful bowl of coziness that'll warm you up from the inside out and fill you up with plant-based goodness. All you need are a few pantry staples and fresh veggies. It really is super easy to make, and I love that it's also a freezer-friendly meal prep recipe that you can reheat in the future in a flash. There are many, many reasons to love this recipe, so let me show you how to make it. To get started, you'll need to slice and dice a few veggies, and I'm starting with one medium onion. I'm sure you guys have heard of the term mise en place, which is a French phrase that means putting in place, but all that means is to prep your ingredients. And trust me when I say that cooking at home and making recipes is a hundred times easier when you first read through the entire recipe and then prep all of the individual ingredients before you ever get started. So for this vegetarian chili recipe today, I'm dicing up my onion and then putting it into a bowl, which I'll just place off to the side. The next veggie you'll prep are two bell peppers, and I'm using red and green today, but you could use any color. Just slice off the top and bottom, run your knife along the inside edge to scoop out the membrane and seeds, then cut it into strips before slicing across for a dice. But whatever you do, don't forget the top and bottom pieces, as there's lots of usable veggie there. So slice those pieces off and dice them up as well. Bell peppers have a sweet, mild flavor, but if you like an extra spicy flavor, you could dice up a jalapeno pepper or serrano pepper as well. Vegetarian chili is not only a great meatless main that can certainly hold its own against my classic chili recipe or white chicken chili recipe, but it's also budget-friendly as it uses canned beans as the main source of protein. And we'll get to those beans in just a second, but after you're done prepping the bell peppers, add them to the bowl with the onion. Next up are two large carrots, and just give those a quick peel. The easiest way to dice carrots is to cut them in half, then cut those halves in half with the flat edge facing down on your cutting board, and then just slice across. I never liked dicing carrots and celery before learning this method, and now I find them super easy to prep. So sometimes it just takes a little practice. And when you're done with the carrots, add them to your prep bowl with the other veggies. You'll slice two stalks of celery the same way you slice the carrots, and if your celery is super wide, you can slice it lengthwise into thirds rather than halves before slicing across into a dice. It's really up to you on how big and chunky you'd like the pieces to be, and overall, how big and chunky you'd like your chili. And wouldn't you look at that? After just a few minutes, you've got a whole bowl of veggies prepped, and now the rest of this recipe comes together super easy. But before you leave the cutting board, you'll want to bash four garlic cloves and remove their peel. Most of you guys know that I love garlic, and it always seems to find its way into most of my savory recipes. But those papery skins, oh my gosh, they drive me a bit bonkers as I'm constantly finding little pieces of the papery skins on my kitchen floor. Take your bowl of veggies and garlic over to the stove, and then take out your colander because it's time to rinse your canned beans. I'm using three different types of beans in this recipe, and that includes one 15-ounce can of black beans, one 15-ounce can of pinto beans, and one 15-ounce can of red kidney beans. Canned beans are always gloppy out of the can, and that's because of the starchy water that they sit in. So always make sure to give them a good rinse. Once they're rinsed thoroughly, you'll notice less of those starchy water bubbles forming, and then you can take these over to the stove. All right, now that your mise en place is done, it's time to get cooking. Add two tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot on medium-high heat, and then toss in your bowl of diced onion, bell peppers, carrot, and celery. This is a basic mirepoix mix plus the addition of bell pepper, and it adds so much flavor to the chili. Give it a stir for four to five minutes or until the onion is starting to become translucent and the veggies are softening. Next comes the aromatics and spices. So mince your four garlic cloves straight into the pot, and then add two tablespoons of chili powder, one tablespoon of ground cumin, one teaspoon of paprika, one teaspoon of dried oregano, one teaspoon of kosher salt, and one tablespoon of tomato paste. Stir that all together for another minute until it's fragrant and smelling pretty darn amazing. Dump into your pot the three types of drained beans along with 28 ounces of fire-roasted diced tomatoes. You can use regular diced tomatoes, but fire-roasted tomatoes add a layer of smoky flavor that, in my opinion, makes this recipe next level. So if you can find them, definitely use them. And then add four ounces of diced green chilies. I should also note that you do not want to drain the tomatoes or green chilies, just the beans. Add two cups of vegetable broth to the pot and then give that all a stir to mix everything together. Lastly, add one bay leaf and stir it in and then bring the chili to a boil. Once it's boiling, reduce the heat to medium low and let it simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, giving it a few stirs throughout. Now, I love a really thick chili, but if you prefer a more brothy chili, you can also add another cup of vegetable broth or water at any point in this process. You could also give the chili a slightly creamier texture by using an immersion blender to spot blend a few times. The great thing about homemade recipes is that you can always tweak them to your preferences. But if you make this recipe as written on my website, it will look like this and you'll have a tantalizing aroma wafting through your kitchen. When your chili is done, remove it from the stove, pluck out that bay leaf because no one wants to accidentally chomp down on that, give it one final stir and then serve it up. This is the kind of meal I love to make when I'm craving comfort food on a cold fall or winter day as it's so cozy and warming, yet it's easy to digest and it won't weigh you down. And you can't beat that it's a one-pot wonder as well with minimal dirty dishes to clean up afterwards because as much as I personally love to cook, I certainly don't love doing dishes. Scoop a few generous ladlefuls of the chili into a bowl and then if you'd like, add your favorite toppings. You can add a sprinkle of cheese or a dollop of sour cream. I also love to add diced avocado and normally I would add chopped cilantro, but I just used up all of my cilantro on another recipe I'm testing. So today I'm adding chopped chives instead. Either way, you know I've always got to add more greens on top. I hope you enjoyed today's video and if you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up as that always means so much. Share it with your family and friends to spread the down-gyptology love and I will see you again in the next video.