Healthy Kitchen Sink Chili

This Chili recipe is based on the Culinary Institute of America cookbook. I add my own mixture of chopped veggies, sauté them, and put them in the food grinder to make the secret sauce. The secret is that the sauce is flavored with this wide-range of vegetables but chopped very finely that you can’t tell what is in it.

I call this Kitchen Sink Chili because there are lots of vegetables. My main idea is to get the various taste profiles with each of the ingredients. There are a variety of peppers used (Yellow, Red, Green, Jalepeno, etc). Think of this as getting the full colors of the food rainbow. The Chili is very healthy and high in antioxidants due to the reasons stated above.

I use Ground Chicken in this recipe and only add beans to my bowl (my family doesn’t like beans). It is very warming and filling. Another healthy aspect to this recipe is that there is no added sugar. I only use canned sauce and tomatoes (with no additives). Most of the seasonings are various types of ground peppers (black and chili) and the salt doesn’t need to be added if you are watching your salt-intake.

Ingredients

2 Pounds Ground Chicken
1 Red Pepper (diced)
1 Green Pepper (diced)
1 Yellow Pepper (diced)
1 Jalapeno Pepper (diced)
2 Shallots (diced)
1 Head Garlic (Whole Cloves Ok)
1 large sweet onion (diced)
1 large red onion (diced)
2 pieces of celery (diced)
2 carrots (diced)
1 32 ounce can chopped tomatoes
2 Heaping Tablespoons of Tomato Paste
1 Can or Rotel or 1 adobo pepper (Optional)
2 tablespoons of chili powder
2 teaspoons of cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Grapeseed oil

Technique

1. Heat oil in large frying pan over medium-low heat

2. Add red pepper, green pepper, yellow pepper, jalapeño pepper, shallots, celery, carrots, onion.

3. Sweat these ingredients until Soft

4. Add garlic to pan and let it slighty soften

5. Add 3/4 can of chopped tomatoes to pan

6. Add some salt and pepper to taste

7. Add either a can of rotel or a few adobo peppers (diced) to taste (either is optional)

8. Add 1 tablespoon of chili powder, 1 teaspoon of cumin to pan, and a tablespoon of tomato paste to pan and mix.

9. Remove pan from heat and put mixture in food processor or blender to purée. Use a towel in case the mixture is hot. You may also want to do this in batches. Hold the mixture in a bowl while the ground chicken is cooked.

10. Add some additional oil to pan (if necessary) and brown the ground chicken.

11. Add 1 tablespoon of chili powder, 1 teaspoon of cumin, and tablespoon of tomato paste to pan and mix.

12. Pour purée mixture, chicken, and reserved tomatoes to crock pot (or on stovetop) and cook all day (low and slow).

I reserve some or the tomatoes so there is a slightly chunky consistency to the tomatoes.  The purée and chunkiness are two distinct textures.

For even more texture, you could leave some of the onions diced in the sauce.