January Chili

My rich, hearty, "three-chili bean chili" will fortify you for 2023

Happy new year, and welcome to 2023! I’m writing from Australia, where I’m taking notes for summer recipes, but before I left the US it was plenty cold enough to start getting excited about January batches of chili. This one is already stashed away in my freezer for when I’m back. I hope your year is off to a good start.

---

I enjoy a project chili: the process of building flavor; the rich rewards of a long, slow simmer; and a big payoff in either leftovers or a happily fed crowd of people. While there’s nothing complicated happening in this recipe — and there’s a food processor to speed up the vegetable prep — this is one of those longer, slower ones, and not a quick weeknight type.

I won’t wade into the contentious chili issues, but I will share a few of my learned tips when it comes to making a vegetarian one.

• Don’t be stingy with oil. Fat here is velvety texture and richness. But where meat easily balances out acidity and sweetness, vegetable flavors are sharper, and you need extra fat to soften them.

• Cook your own beans. They’re too important in a bean chili not to. Additionally, you may be inclined to add dried or soaked beans directly to the pot rather than cooking them first, but I haven’t had great luck with that — they don’t cook evenly and seem to take forever to get tender.

• Use a medley of dried chilis. I love this. Customize your own chili blend, pulling the levers of fruity, spicy, and smokey to your heart’s content. In my Start Simple Ancho Bean Chili, which was designed of course to be simpler, I call for ground ancho powder because it’s easier to find. But here you’ll use dried whole ones, which allows plenty of flexibility to play around.

  ---