From previous blog posts and YouTube videos I’ve shared, I think it comes as no surprise to anyone that I. Love. Comfort food! And chilli is no exception! A traditional chilli uses ingredients like ground beef, kidney beans, beef broth, etc. But a key ingredient to any chilli recipe is good quality, finely chopped tomatoes.

Recently Mutti Canada approached me to create a unique recipe featuring their Mutti Finely Chopped Tomatoes (Polpa). The catch, however, was to use five ingredients or less.

I knew it would be difficult, but I was up for the challenge. And with the autumnal season upon us and winter just around the corner, my comfort food cravings were in high gear. What better comfort food is there than a warm bowl of chilli during the colder months?!

While traditional chilli recipes call for a laundry list of ingredients, I tried to pare this recipe down to the basics. “Tried” being the operative word! You’ll see in the ingredients list below that I segmented “water” and “spices” separately to make room for the five key ingredients. With that said, however, the spice blend and using quality tomatoes are essential to getting that traditional chilli flavour!

This Vegan Chilli Recipe uses only 5 key ingredients + 2 in-house essentials!

Five key ingredients

2 Cans of Mutti Finely Chopped Tomatoes (Polpa),
2 Cans of organic chickpeas,
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil,
2 Yellow onions, diced,
5 Cloves of fresh garlic, minced, (which isn’t a traditional chilli ingredient, but, I’m Italian so let me have this one),

Two in-house essentials

2 cups water,
Spice blend (½ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, 2 tbsp chilli powder, 2 tbsp ground cumin, 2 tsp paprika).

Once I got started on actually making the recipe, I realized that the cooking time was no more than 10 minutes! That’s a big deal for me because it means this recipe is weeknight-friendly, and requires no fuss.

It can easily serve four to five people, making it a family-friendly recipe, too!

Like I said earlier though, the secret to getting that traditional comfort food chilli flavour that warms the soul, is in that spice blend and in making sure you’re using a superior quality canned tomatoes.

My Italian roots might have me biased to products from Italy, but even when my heartmate and I travel there, we always find the food quality to be superior. I don’t know what it is! Maybe the Italian soil, maybe the cultivating… but when I use products from Italy in our kitchen here at home, it reminds us of the food we have when we’re there!

What I love about Mutti in particular is that they’ve been a secret ingredient in Italian kitchens for over a century, including my grandmother’s! Mutti is 100% grown and made in Italy, and they’re committed to the environment and their farmers. You can read more about why they are Italy’s #1 tomato at www.mutti.ca

How to Make this 10-minute Chickpea Chilli Recipe Sin Carne, that’s also Vegan and Gluten Free.

Chickpea Chilli Sin Carne (Vegan & Gluten Free)

This vegan and gluten-free chickpea chilli sin-carne uses only 5 ingredients. It is so tasty, and focuses heavily on a good tomato sauce for the base

Course Dinner

Cuisine American, Gluten Free, Vegan

Keyword chili, Chilli, Gluten-Free, Vegan

Instructions

In a large deep skillet, either metal or cast iron, bring your olive oil to a sizzle over medium heat. When ready, add your minced garlic and stir gently with wooden spoon not to let the garlic stick and/or burn.
After the garlic has turned slightly brown, add your diced onions and mix well, lifting any pieces of garlic from the bottom of the skillet. Keep on medium heat and continue to stir regularly for about 2 minutes or until onions begin to appear translucent.
Next add your chickpeas and spice blend to the pot and mix thoroughly so that the spices cover all the ingredients.
After about a minute or so, add your 2 cans of Mutti Finely Chopped Tomatoes (Polpa). Stir thoroughly, and add your 2 cups of water.
Increase heat to medium-high, and let sit on a rolling boil for about 4 minutes. Reduce heat and let sit, then serve.

How easy is that? 10 minutes, 5 ingredients, and no fuss whatsoever. After my heartmate and I tried the recipe, we both agreed that using kidney beans, red beans, or lentils instead of chickpeas might help achieve that traditional chilli flavour but we equally liked the chickpeas. I always have cans of chickpeas in the pantry anyway, so this was a no brainer.

Another pro-tip would be to substitute the 2 cups of water for low-sodium vegetable broth. This would help pull out some of the flavours of the other ingredients. But again, because the challenge was the use five ingredients or less, water worked perfectly as a substitute!

I hope you enjoyed this 10-minute Chickpea Chilli Sin Carne Recipe and get to enjoy it on a cold day this season!

Be sure to tag Mutti and myself on social and use my #InspiredbyNick hashtag to show me your creations if you decide to recreate this!

Nick Joly | Inspired by Nick
be good to your body
inspiredbynick.com

Thank you to Mutti Canada for sponsoring this post!