It’s been raining here all week which made us really want some warm, cozy chili. We especially love this chili served over mashed potatoes but it also grows great with tortilla chips or some garlic bread.
Serves: 4
Time: 1.5 hours (30 minutes active time)
Ingredients
3 cups cooked beans* or two cans kidney beans
8 oz crimini mushrooms, sliced
2 bell peppers, chopped
black pepper
1 onion, (2 cups) chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cups veggie stock (gluten-free option, soy-free option)
If you are cooking the beans from dry, cook the beans according to the instructions below.
While the beans are cooking, saute the mushrooms in olive oil until browned, about 15 minutes. Grind some fresh black pepper onto the mushrooms about halfway through cooking. Once the mushrooms are done, set them aside and saute the chopped peppers in olive oil about 10 minutes and set aside.
Once the beans are cooked, in a large pot, sweat the onions over medium low heat until they start to go translucent, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic, cook for an additional 2 minutes before adding the spices. Continue to cook, stirring, about 1 minute until fragrant.
Add the tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 45 minutes, stirring frequently, until the liquid is thickened. Add the beans after 25 minutes of simmering. Add the sauteed peppers and serve hot with garlic bread, tortilla chips, or mashed potatoes.
*Cooking kidney beans from dry:
In the Instant Pot:
To cook the kidney beans in an Instant Pot, add 1 1/3 cup of dried kidney beans to the pot. Cover the beans with water (in the small Instant pot this is about 6 cups of water), season with 1 tbsp kosher salt, 1 tsp chili powder, and 1 tsp cumin. Set the Instant Pot to pressure cook for 17 minutes letting depressurize naturally. Drain and rinse before adding to the dish.
On the stove:
If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can easily cook kidney beans from scratch with a little planning. First you will need to soak the kidney beans which can be done one of two ways. 1. you can soak them overnight making sure they have enough water and space to double in size or 2. you can put them in a pot and bring to boil, then turn off the water and let soak for one hour. Again, make sure you have enough water and space that they can double in size.
Once you have soaked your beans, rinse them and then put in a pot with salty water. These will be cooking for about 2 hours so you don’t want as much salt as you would use for pasta, but you do want to add enough that you can taste the salt. The best way to get good at this is to practice. Each time you salt the water, taste it and when the beans are done taste them to see if they are well salted. A well salted bean should taste flavorful but not salty. If it tastes like you are eating salt, you added too much. If the bean lacks flavor then you didn’t have enough salt. For this recipe, also add 1 tsp chili, and 1 tsp cumin to the kidney beans as they cook.
Cook the kidney beans until they are soft but not falling apart (this will take 1.5-2 hours). We recommend checking the beans at about an hour and then every 20 minutes until they are soft but not disintegrating. Make sure your pot has enough water as I have definitely cooked all the water off before and burnt the beans! This may seem like a lot of work, however once you get the hang of it the work is almost all passive and the reward is high: kidney beans cooked from scratch taste much better and are much cheaper!