Black Bean Chili Recipe Is a HIT! Make Your Own Version and Enjoy!

Our volunteer luncheon was wonderful and I had many compliments on the recipe. That means it’s good enough to share with you all! Keep in mind that just like with most of my recipes, I do a little bit of tweaking. So I’ll give you the recipe as best I can and you’ll have to do a little bit of experimenting on what works best for you.

The first thing is that I used dried beans! Why? You know why if you read my last article! If not, check it out: One of the Top Cancer Fighting Foods: Dried Beans! How to Cook Dried Beans. The article also spells out how to prepare dried beans to use in recipes.

Image via Wikipedia

Black Bean Chili in a Crock Pot!

First I’ll give you the recipe, then I’ll tell you some ways you can alter it to fit your needs. I got the inspiration from this site.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 6 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
• 2 chopped onions, medium size
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste – of course, I definitely used more!
• 1 tablespoon chili powder – …. or more!
• 2 to 3 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cans (14 oz. each) diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 cups of frozen sweet corn (I added this, because i love sweet corn in chili!)
• 2 cans (16 ounces each) black beans, drained and rinsed (see below on how you can use dried beans)
• 2 cans (16 ounces each) beans — pinto, garbanzo, great northern, kidney beans, etc. — drained and rinsed (see below on how you can use dried beans)
• GARNISHES: grated cheese, sour cream,  green onion, or other

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a skillet and saute the onions, garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook 1 minute, then add chili powder and cumin and cook 2 minutes, stirring.
2. Add this mixture to the crock pot along with all remaining ingredients except canned beans.
   OR
3. Add the mixture to the crock pot with the previously soaked beans! [SEE TIPS BELOW ON A FEW ALTERATIONS TO THE RECIPE IF USING DRIED BEANS!]
4. Stir well and cook on low all day. If using canned beans, stir in an hour or so before serving.
5. Serve with garnishes.

Extra Tips for This Recipe

Tips If you are going to use dried beans:

• In order to make it with dried beans, be sure to soak the beans in
  plenty of water for at least 8 hours before using in the recipe.
• To measure out the 4 cans worth of beans (as the recipe calls for) – I used the empty tomato cans as scoops.
• I added extra water/broth (probably an extra 1.5 – 2 cups) to the recipe when using the soaked dried beans. It then seemed a bit runny, so I thickened it at the end by mixing a little bit of flour with water and stirring in.
• It also required extra spices! I pretty much doubled all the spices that were called for. Then, I added even more of each of them at the last minute before serving. You can never have too much spice, ha! Before serving, I also added some onion powder and garlic powder.
• If you’re brave – You could try this recipe with beans that you did not even soak!

Tips if you want to make it in a regular pot, instead of a crock pot:

• I have been able to take almost all crock pot recipes and cook them in a regular pot. You could do that for this recipe. If using canned beans, just follow the instructions above and instead of moving to #2, just add all the other ingredients to #1 and heat until the chili is ready to eat! This would likely not take more than 20-30 minutes.
• If using dried beans, you would do the same thing, follow the tips above for using dried beans (extra water and extra spices) and then cook for a WHILE until they are done.  First bring to a boil, then let it simmer. That would probably take about 2 hours.

I hope you enjoy!!

– Julie