Butternut Squash Chili

My butternut squash chili recipe is a new spin on the classic chili. I'm Justin from Cooking with Coit. I specialize in clean comfort cooking. And remember, if you love this video, make sure you hit those like and subscribe buttons. Let's get started. Let's first go over all the ingredients you need to make this recipe. Ground beef or any protein of your choice, black beans, diced tomatoes, onion, coriander, chili powder, cumin, butternut squash, chicken, beef, or vegetable broth. All right, guys, I am so excited to be making this chili recipe with you today. I live in Los Angeles, and the weather has finally gotten cooler. It's never gonna be cold here, of course, but it's finally cooled down. All that summer heat is gone. So now I'm really looking forward to making these kind of like comfort food style recipes that are really great for colder weather. This butternut squash chili is so delicious. I know you guys are gonna love it, so let's get into it. First thing we're gonna do is to dice up one onion. I'm basically gonna dice up a half of an onion. All I need is one cup's worth. Next, we're gonna be cutting up our butternut squash, and cutting butternut squash is just a pain in the butt. I've never found it easy. I always feel like I'm right on the edge of cutting my finger off, but just take your time, go slow. So I first like to trim off both ends, and what you're gonna notice when you're cutting butternut squash is it is a very firm vegetable. Is it a butternut squash is a vegetable? What is it? Is it a vegetable? Do you know that butternut squash is a vegetable? I think so. Anyway, it might be called something else, but let's just go with vegetable for now. What you're gonna notice is when you cut into it, it is very firm. You just have to go real slow, work your knife into the butternut squash, and just kind of wiggle it around until you get through it. Again, just go slow and be very careful. I don't want anyone losing a finger here. So you can toss these little pieces away, and now we're gonna be peeling our butternut squash. I always like to sort of peel away from me. I find it's a little bit easier and a little safer, to be honest. So just work your way all around the sides of the butternut squash, and just keep peeling until you start seeing a little bit more of an orangey color, just like this. That's gonna be like the fruit of the butternut squash, and that's what we wanna get to, and we really wanna get rid of all the layers on top of that. You're gonna see some of the initial layers are a little bit lighter in color, a little bit whiter. Just go ahead and keep peeling until you get right through that outer layer. The butternut squash is really the most important ingredient in this recipe. It gives the chili the perfect amount of sweetness, and as you'll see later in this recipe, it's also going to give the chili a ton of creaminess as well. As a quick reminder, all of my recipes, including the exact amounts and instructions, are available on my website. To find that link, check out the description below the video. With our butternut squash fully peeled, now we're going to start to dice it up. Grab your knife out, and what I always look for is this sort of junction point in between the straight part of the butternut squash and where it starts to curve. So I find that with my knife, and then I'm going to cut all the way through, just like this. Again, go easy, go slow. Just work your knife all the way through. And there we go. We're going to lay the bottom of the butternut squash just like this. We're also gonna cut it in half again, straight through the middle. And now, what you're gonna see are seeds. This is gonna look just like a pumpkin. Now I have this amazing tool that I use to scrape all of this stuff out, and this is a grapefruit spoon. And what you're gonna see is that this spoon has a little bit of these sort of sharp ridges. You don't need this. You could use a regular spoon if you want, but I find that this really helps with the scraping. It makes it a lot faster and cleaner. So now just give this a scrape, and we're gonna get all this stuff right out of here. All right, so with the seeds and everything scraped out, now just give it a little flip over like this. And what I like to do is I like to cut basically one-inch slices and work my way from right here all the way to the left. Just try to cut these as evenly as you can. It doesn't have to be perfect, though. We're basically gonna cube all of this butternut squash. We're gonna dump it into the pot. It's going to cook for quite a while until it's softened. So the piece size is not super important here. You know, I always like to try to make it as uniform as I can. So now once you've got these long pieces cut, what I like to do is just to cut them in fairly equal little cubes just like this, and you work your way all the way around. And now what you're gonna see is you're left with this taller part here. We're gonna do the exact same thing as we did before, and let's cut it all the way through just like that. And then let's cut our slices just like we did before. And then now we're gonna cut our cubes out of these slices as best we can do. All right, so that is all the prep that we need to do. Now we can start the cooking. So grab out your olive oil. I like to add anywhere between a tablespoon, tablespoon and a half, straight into a large pot, or you can use one of these Dutch ovens. I love this Dutch oven. I've had it for years. It's from Le Creuset. It's the 5.3 liter size. It's perfect for this recipe. If you don't own a Dutch oven, I highly, highly suggest you get one, and Le Creuset is always a no-brainer for those. Next, we're gonna add our diced onion straight into the pot. And the heat that I've got here is about a medium heat. You don't wanna go too hot. We don't wanna be burning these onions. We just wanna cook them until they're slightly translucent. It should be anywhere between like a minute to three minutes. Next, we're gonna be adding our spices. We're first gonna start with one tablespoon of chili powder, followed by a tablespoon of cumin. Please do not skip it. It's really gonna give it that chili feel. It's very important. We're also gonna add one teaspoon of coriander. And now, I've got a very secret weapon for this chili. You don't have to use this, but I highly, highly suggest you do. This is called Sloppy Poppy. This seasoning was made by Chef Roy Choi and actually myself. I'm a co-founder in the company. It's called Sloppy Poppy. We designed it to be used with Sloppy Joe's, but it can work in a wide variety of ways. You can use it on chicken, fish, in the air fryer, in the oven. It's incredible, and it's got such great flavor. So this is my secret weapon for this chili. Again, you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it's amazing. If you haven't tried it, you absolutely need to. For this size pot, I'm probably gonna use about three quarters of the packet. You can use a full packet if you want. It is a little spicy though, so if you're kind of a spice wimp, maybe don't use it. I love it. I am actually a spice wimp, and I just love this flavor so much. Check it out. I'll link to it in the description below so you guys can check it out yourselves. And so now let's just give this a nice big mix. And what we're gonna do here is just let this cook in the pot for about 30 seconds. We just wanna wake up those spices, really have them become fragrant. And if your onions are starting to feel a little bit dry at this point, you can add a little bit more olive oil. I'm just gonna add a tiny bit more. And now we're gonna let this cook for just another 30 seconds. Next, we're gonna be adding our protein. I chose a ground beef for this chili. You can use any ground protein that you want, ground chicken, ground turkey. You could also use no protein at all. If you just wanted to make a veggie chili, it's still gonna be super flavorful and very delicious. So skip the meat if you don't want it. So now we're gonna add one pound of your ground protein straight into the pot. And then all you wanna do is just like you're making tacos. So grab out your spatula and break up the meat as it's cooking. You wanna break up the protein into as small pieces as you can possibly make it. And also make sure you're kinda stirring as you're mashing so you're getting all of those seasoned onions worked really well into the meat. Oh, and one note about this recipe. I really cannot forget to call this person out. One of the other partners is Natasha Phan and she is the incredible cook that came up with this original recipe and she was so gracious to allow me to share it with you guys. So I really wanna give her a shout out here. She's just an amazing cook. This recipe is really dedicated to Natasha. All right, so we wanna let this ground protein, this ground beef cook all the way through. So you're probably gonna end up giving it anywhere between, I don't know, five and eight minutes for that to happen. All right, guys, this is looking and smelling amazing. Let me show you how we're doing right about now. Check it out. All right, so next thing we're gonna do is to add in our butternut squash straight into the pot. I like to add the butternut squash before I add all the liquids that we're gonna do next. And the reason for that is, is that if you add a bunch of liquids and then you toss in the butternut squash, it's gonna splash and make a big mess. So it's just easier to add the butternut squash at this step here. Next, we're gonna be adding our diced tomatoes. That's one can, about 15 ounces. You can use completely fresh tomatoes if you want to. I am not a hater on canned tomatoes, though. And let me tell you why. These are fire-roasted canned tomatoes. They taste great. I typically use the San Marzano brand almost exclusively, but I couldn't find it this time. So this is Mere Glen. I'm sure it's gonna be great, too. They've also seasoned the tomatoes a little bit, so they're gonna be super tasty. Next, I'm gonna be adding my black beans. So I've already taken these black beans out of the can. I have drained and rinsed them, and I am adding them right onto the top here. You can, if you want, give this a little bit of mix right at this step. You don't have to. We're gonna be adding in the chicken broth right now, but I like to just kind of settle things down. Next up, we're gonna be adding 24 ounces of any broth that you want. So the way I like to think about this typically is that if I'm adding beef, I would do beef broth. If I'm adding ground chicken, I'd do chicken broth. Now, I'm kind of dumb, and yesterday when I was shopping for this recipe, I completely forgot to get beef broth. So I'm gonna be using chicken broth. So I'm just completely doing exactly what I told you not to do. There's no wrong here. It's all gonna taste great. You can even use veggie broth with beef if you wanted. I just find you might like the results a little bit better if you sort of match the two up. But we're using chicken broth because that's what I have. My recipe calls for 24 ounces. So let's pour that straight in. I mean, chicken broth really works with everything. I've made an incredible rice dish with it. So it's really nice to cook rice in chicken broth. Instead of just using water, it gives it so much more flavor. All right, so let's give this one nice mix. Get this all really well combined. You guys, this chili is so good. I'm not just saying that because it's my recipe. It is so incredibly delicious. And as you've seen, it's really not hard at all. The hardest part of the prep is cutting the butternut squash, and that's not even that bad. Now we're gonna bring this to a boil. Then we're gonna reduce the heat to a simmer, and then we're gonna pop on the top here, and we're gonna let this cook for anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes. What we wanna see, the way that we're gonna know that it's ready for the next step after that, is to pierce the butternut squash with a fork. Once it becomes fork tender, we're good to go. All right, guys, the 25-minute timer just went off. Let's see how we're doing. Ooh! Oh my God, it smells so amazing. Okay, so let me just give this a quick stir so you guys can see how it's looking. It is looking incredible. Now let's grab out a fork and just see if this butternut squash is cooked all the way through. And oh yeah, it's like perfect. It's perfectly tender. Look at that, it's falling apart. So now, grab out a masher if you have one. If you don't have one, you should definitely buy one. You can buy one on Amazon. They're so cheap. If you don't have one, you can use a wooden spatula, just something that's gonna mash up the butternut squash. So grab out your spatula or masher and get to it. And what you're gonna see happen right before your eyes is that the butternut squash, as you're mashing, is going to thicken up this chili and make it so beautifully thick and so creamy. And what I really love about this is that we're not using flour, and we're also not using dairy. There's no problem if you love dairy. You can totally use it if you could add a little bit of heavy cream or milk if you wanted to. But I'm actually not a big fan of dairy for health reasons. And so by using this butternut squash, you're getting all of that thickness in the chili without having to add any animal product at all. So keep giving this a mash until you've basically gotten all of the butternut squash pieces fully mashed up. The other thing that you're gonna see is that this chili has gone from this sort of dark brown to this nice kind of orangey color. It's just such a beautiful color. It's such a great dish. And as you've seen, it's really, really easy to make. All right, this is looking so incredible. So at this step, this is what I would do. I would grab out your salt and pepper and just do a little bit of salt and pepper to taste. So earlier, I used that sloppy poppy packet. It's got quite a bit of salt in it already, so I don't need to add too much more salt. But I might add just a little bit more pinch of pepper. But just do this completely to taste. It should be however you like it at this point. And this chili is looking so incredible. It is fully done and ready to eat, and I cannot wait to give it a try. But before I do, if you love this recipe and you wanna see more just like it, check out my healthy recipes playlist. Okay, let's give it a try. All right, so now let's garnish this chili, and you can garnish it however you want. I know I said I'm not really a big dairy person earlier, but sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not. I'm gonna put a little bit of cheese on my chili because I love cheese on my chili. So good. So just a little sprinkle. Maybe a little more. A little more of a sprinkle. And then I'm also gonna add my favorite garnish, a little bit of sour cream, right on the side just like that. If I had chives, I would sprinkle some on top too, and it would be so good. Let's give this a try and see how we did. This chili is absolutely perfect. It's so easy to make. It doesn't require a lot of ingredients. It's creamy, it's delicious. It can be dairy-free if you want it to be. It could be plant-based if you want it to be. Guys, you've got to give this a try. I know you're gonna love it. I'll see you in the next video.