Worthy Vegetarian Chili from Molly MacRae

 

 

I found it! For years I’ve been looking for a vegetarian chili worthy of its name. How do I know I found it? This chili passed the meat-eating, chili-loving husband test. After one spoonful, my husband said “Yum-a-diddle!” And I had to agree. It tasted just the way I’d hoped it would. It had a nice brown, meaty, chili flavor without the meat. Amazing.

This recipe is based on one from Jocelyn Ramirez in the New York Times. The differences between hers and mine? I didn’t bother to squeeze the mushrooms dry, I chopped the vegetables rather than minced them, I added more garlic, jalapeño, chili powder and cumin. I left out the sugar (sorry, but sugar in chili? ewww), added far less broth, and simmered the chili three times longer.

Worthy Vegetarian Chili

Serves 4 (with leftovers)

 

Ingredients

1 pound portobello or cremini mushrooms (or mixture), chopped (Did you know that portobello, cremini, and white button mushrooms are all the same? They’re just at different stages of maturity.)

1/3 cup olive oil

Salt and black pepper

1 medium to large yellow onion, chopped

2 red bell peppers, chopped

1 or 2 jalapeño peppers, minced

3-5 garlic cloves, minced

1-2 teaspoons chili powder

3/4 teaspoon chipotle powder

1-2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons tomato paste

2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes

2 (15-ounce) cans black beans

2 cups vegetable broth

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted, chopped

 

Directions

Heat the oil in a medium pot over high heat. Add the mushrooms with ¼ to ½ a teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Cook, stirring frequently. Mushrooms will give up their liquid. Continue cooking until liquid is almost gone, 10 or more minutes. Mushrooms will begin to darken.

Lower heat to medium and add onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add bell peppers, jalapeños, and garlic and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until fragrant. Add chili powder, chipotle powder, cumin, and cinnamon and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomato paste and stir.

Add tomatoes (with the juice), beans, broth, and porcini mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper to taste (I probably used 1 to 1 ½ teaspoons of salt and at least ¼ teaspoon of black pepper). Increase heat and bring chili to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

Continue cooking chili at a slow simmer for an hour or so (turning heat down as necessary to keep the simmer low) letting the flavors develop and deepen.

Serve with oyster crackers. Yum-a-diddle.

 

Look for Molly’s new series—the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries—coming in July 2024!

Book 1: Come Shell or High Water

And in the meantime, you can enjoy her other books.

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.