This quick-to-make vegetarian pantry chile call for what I’d normally say is too many cans. But you know what, it’s nice to a have a pantry full of healthy canned food at the ready. Even if you’ve never boiled water, you can make this easy meatless chili.
Click here to PIN Easy Vegetarian Pantry Chili!
This vegetarian pantry chili starts with chopped onions sautéed until soft. While the onions cook, you drain and rinse the contents of 3 cans, one each of black, pinto, kidney beans. Keep going–open a can each of hominy corn, diced green chiles and diced tomatoes, plus a can (or jar) of salsa.
Stir everything into the pot of onions. Add cumin and chili powder. Stir in some vegetable broth–more or less, to make your chili as thin or thick as you like. Give it a half-hour simmering on the stove and there you have it, hot and ready to enjoy, a flavor-packed one-pot vegetarian chili.
This quick and easy chili is more than you’d expect for a dinner that comes almost entirely from cans. So, grab a can opener, an onion, and a couple spices–you’ve got this!
What’s in the pantry?
>>>> Open our pantry and you’ll always find more than one can of beans, on the same shelf as jars of dried beans. Even though canned beans are wicked handy, you may know I prefer to cook beans from scratch.
(In fact, he most popular recipes here on the blog are 3 how-to-cook-beans in a pressure cooker. Like “How to cook black beans in a pressure cooker“, “How to pressure cook pinto beans”, and “How to pressure cook chickpeas.” Beans from scratch do taste much better than the ones in a can, and a pressure cooker makes scratch beans freaking easy. Even easier, though–canned beans!
>>>> Green chiles and red salsa, they’re pantry regulars around here too. You might like this easy risotto made with chard, pinto beans and green chiles. I keep toothy hominy around in case I feel like making butternut squash pozole, my vegetarian riff on classic Mexican pozole. Make it fast in your pressure cooker or Instant Pot.
>>>> Always on hand–canned diced tomatoes for minestrone soup.
Vegetarian Pantry Chili recipe tips, substitutions and stuff:
- We garnished our chili with a sprinkle of grated white cheddar cheese. To really dress it up, you could garnish with sour cream and green onions.
- Keep it vegan: Top your chili with a few slices of avocado.
- I used medium-hot tomato salsa. If your picante tolerance is high, choose a “hotter” salsa. You could also use green salsa.
- Hominy brings in toothsome texture and color contrast, but if you don’t have hominy, substitute frozen or canned corn that you’ve rinsed and drained.
- You should be able to find canned hominy in the section with other Mexican foods like the chiles and salsa. It seems to be most available in 25-ounce cans, containing about 3 cups hominy kernels. You won’t use it all in this recipe–just freeze what you don’t need.
Last week, the store was out of kidney beans. No worries, I just used a second can of pintos in this recipe. As in, If you don’t have one kind of beans for this vegetarian pantry chili, just sub in another kind.
More home-cooking inspiration:
- Use the reserved hominy in greens and potato soup with hominy and pinto beans.
- Chili is delicious over baked potatoes!
- To go with any hearty chili, try these chard and pepper jack quesadillas.
- One more idea: Made with dried beans, this spicy black bean chili with hearty greens.
A few years back I posted a review of Jessica Fisher’s cookbook, Good Cheap Eats Dinner in 30 Minutes (or Less! (Affiliate) This recipe is adapted from the 30-minute confetti chili in her cookbook and is an update of the original post.
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Easy Vegetarian Pantry Chili
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
- 1 medium onion , chopped (about 2 cups)
- 1 (7-ounce) can diced green chiles
- 1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, drained
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
- 1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, drained
- 1 ½ cups hominy corn, rinsed and drained, (see notes)
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with their juices
- 1 cup red or green salsa, (see notes)
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ cup hot vegetable broth or water, optional
Instructions
- In a large stockpot, heat the oil over high heat until shimmering. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until the onion turns translucent, about 5 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent scorching.
- Add the beans, hominy, tomatoes, green chiles, salsa, chili powder, and cumin. Depending on how thick you want your chili to be, stir in vegetable broth or water. Bring to a low boil, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Notes
- I used medium-hot tomato salsa. If your picante tolerance is high, choose a “hotter” salsa. You could also use green salsa.
- Hominy brings in toothsome texture and color contrast but if you don’t have hominy, substitute frozen or rinsed and drained canned corn.
- MAKE IT AHEAD: The chili can be cooled and stored in a covered container in the fridge for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is meant to be an estimate only. The numbers will vary based on the brands you use and substitutions you made, as well as how much chili you actually eat.
Letty, I miss you. Can I have a date? Either with boys or solo. Thanks for the easy Christmas Day feed. Love, Kym · 18 December, 2015
Thanks Kym,
You will love the chili for Christmas–easy peasy and delish! · 18 December, 2015