I love chili. Most of the ingredients are super cheap. Can be omnivorous, vegetarian, or vegan. There’s like 1,000 varieties. If you eat meat it extends that meat to save on cost. If you don’t…well it still extends your meat alternatives to also save on cost. lol. Is an easy vector to add in other protein sources with minimal impact to flavor. And you can make a shit load of it in one big go and then just live off of it for a week or so.

I’ll make like 4-5 gallons of chili, freeze 2/3 of it in smaller bowls, then eat chili for a whole damn week. Then have like 2-3 days of chili for the next few weeks. Then do it all over again. Each time I try a change or two to my recipe and write it all down. I got like 5 main recipes now. Some use more store bought ingredients, some use almost entirely home grown tomato products. Like homemade tomato paste etc. Those recipes beat the dogshit out of the store bought recipes. All of them include fermented beans.

I got some recipes that, while not giving away my secret ingredients, I will share the basics if anyone is interested? I personally do include meat in my chili. If there are those who wish to take any of my recipes and offer meatless alternatives that would be awesome. Like tofu chili or something idk

  • Seanchaí (she/her)
    6•2 years ago

    Thank you!

    For any vegan spectators out there, I would say to replace the beef stock with a nice mushroom stock to get that umami flavour, and then replace the beef itself with 2 parts TVP and 1 part lentils.

    Edit: and when soaking the TVP and lentils, I would season them with some sweet soy sauce, summer savory, and sage so that they have a stronger flavour going into the chili

    Edit 2: If you don’t have summer savory (apparently it doesn’t grow many places?? it grows here, so I can’t confirm) then maybe thyme and basil

    • @Faresh
      3•2 years ago

      There are also spices that exist merely to give a smoky aroma, for anyone who misses it. Rauchige Fetsau is one that comes to my head (which is smoked paprika, unlike what the name suggests).

    • @sparkingcircuit@lemmygrad.ml
      2•2 years ago

      I didn’t know you could buy textured vegetable protein in anything but an industrial scale for some reason, but now that I know I’m honestly kind of ecstatic that it’s an ingredient within my reach. Thank you for teaching me this (even if it was via a off handed reference for modifying a chili recipe).