Vegetarian Chili

Base Ingredients

Most vegan and vegetarian chilis start with olive oil and diced yellow onions, a couple of garlic cloves, diced tomatoes, and vegetable broth. After that, the ingredients are based on taste -- even if you want it to be beanless! The spices can lean toward Mexican flavors like jalapeno and cilantro with pinto beans, but if you want it to be Texas-style with kidney beans you might look for chili recipes that call for ground cumin and chili powder. If you're gluten-sensitive, there's good news! Most of these recipes are gluten-free.

Stove Top

If you're using canned beans, a stove-top recipe is going to get the job done because canned beans don't need to cook for a very long time. It involves sauteing the onions and garlic and throwing in the beans, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, red bell peppers, zucchini, or other vegetables and letting it cook until it reaches the consistency you like.

Pressure Cooker and Slow Cooker Chili

If you want to use dry beans, Instant Pots and Crock-Pots work well because it takes a lot more energy to make a dried bean soft. For slow cooker chili recipes, all you do is dump all the ingredients in the Crock-Pot, set it and forget it for a few hours. Pressure cooker chili recipes are different in that you still have to saute your onions and garlic before the magic happens, but that magic happens in a total time of less than a half-hour. So if you're choosing between the two methods, time vs effort is what you have to consider.

Vegan and Vegetarian Chili Garnishes and Sides

Garnishes are almost as important as the chili itself. If you're vegetarian, cheddar or sour cream can cool down a spicy bowl of chili while avocado works for vegan chili (although, there are vegan cheddar cheeses and vegan sour creams you can try). Cilantro also brightens a bite of chili, just make sure it's fresh cilantro and it goes on it just before it's served. On the side, tortillas or tortilla chips make great scoops for both vegan and veggie chilis as long as they're made without lard. If cornbread is a must for you, there are plenty of vegan cornbread recipes to explore as well.

With or without beans, in an Instant Pot or a Crock-Pot, you can find the right vegetarian chili to suit you on Yummly.