Easy to make Vegan White bean chili is a nice change from red chili. It is completely different in flavor with wonderful spices! Can be made oil-free by using vegetable broth instead.
VEGAN WHITE BEAN CHILI
Well, I’m back with another recipe and cookbook review! I’m excited and honored to share with you all today a new cookbook called “The Make Ahead Vegan Cookbook” by Ginny Kay McMeans from Vegan In The Freezer. This cookbook contains 125 Freezer-Friendly Vegan Recipes. She has every type of recipe in this book. Everything from appetizers, to main meals to desserts. I was so excited to receive this cookbook! I love vegan chili recipes so naturally I chose this white bean chili. This would be great served with these vegan cornbread muffins!
INGREDIENTS NEEDED
(Full details and measurements on the recipe card below.)
- White navy beans
- Vegetable broth
- Green chiles
- Onion
- Garlic
- Nutritional yeast
- Ground cumin
- Oregano
- Cayenne pepper
- Cloves
HOW TO MAKE VEGAN WHITE BEAN CHILI
Step 1: Soak the white navy beans overnight in a pot of water. Drain and rinse them.
Step 2: Pour the beans into a large soup pot. Add the vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
Step 3: Lower the heat and simmer over medium heat.
Step 4: In a saucepan, heat the coconut oil (or broth) over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion. Sauté for about 10 minutes.
Step 5: Add the garlic and chiles and cook for a couple more minutes.
Step 6: Add the vegetable mixture to the beans. Add the remaining ingredients to the soup pot.
Step 7: Cover and cook over medium heat for about 11/2 hours, stirring occasionally. This soup goes really well with gluten-free cornbread.
STORING INSTRUCTIONS
Her book will teach you how to freeze meals and do advanced planning. All recipes (as stated in her book) are designed to be prepared ahead of time and frozen. Obviously, you can eat them right away too. She also gives wonderful tips in the beginning of the book on freezing and which vegetables should be cooked the correct way before freezing. Lots of great info in there.
I especially enjoyed that there is so many wonderful photos to get you drooling and anxious to make the recipes.
Regarding the recipes, I spoke with Ginny and she has agreed that it’s important for me to mention to my readers that many of the recipes contain oil or vegan butter. I really felt it was important to mention this since I know I run an oil-free blog and a large amount of you all avoid oils, for health reasons. I have found that a lot of the recipes though can easily be made oil-free, by simply omitting it or cooking in broth/water instead. This is very easy to do with the soups and a lot of the recipes that call to cook the veggies in oil. There are many though that call for butter/oil in baking and there are things to sub with, like fruit purees or nut butters, but that will be a personal choice how you sub, which I can’t tell you without having written the recipes or made them all. I just felt it was very important I mentioned this.
Today, I’m sharing the Vegan White Bean Chili from her cookbook! I chose this recipe because it looked and sounded delicious and it was just 10 ingredients and really easy to make! I love soups with slow-cooked beans as well.
Reprinted with permission from “The Make Ahead Vegan Cookbook” by Ginny Kay McMeans
You can purchase your own copy here.
MORE VEGAN CHILI RECIPES
- 30 Minute Vegan Mexican Chili
- Best Hearty Vegan Chili
- Vegan Pumpkin Chili
- Healthy Vegan Chili Cheese Fries
- Chickpea Chili Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Vegan White Bean Chili
Ingredients
- 16 ounces dried navy beans
- 6 cups vegan vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil I omitted this and just used some broth instead
- 1 small yellow onion diced
- 3 to 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 4-ounce can mild green chiles
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 11/2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper I left this out because of my daughter and just used slightly more black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- Pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Pick through the beans to make sure there are no pebbles. Rinse. Soak overnight, covered by at least 2 inches of water. The beans will swell.
- Drain the beans.
- Pour the beans into a large soup pot. Add the vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
- Lower the heat and simmer over medium heat.
- In a saucepan, heat the coconut oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion. Sauté for about 10 minutes.
- Add the garlic and chiles and cook for a couple more minutes.
- Add the vegetable mixture to the beans.
- Add the remaining ingredients to the soup pot.
- Cover and cook over medium heat for about 11/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
- This soup goes really well with corn bread.
- Storing in the refrigerator:
- Will keep covered in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days.
- Freezing: Let cool to room temperature. Freeze in hardsided freezer containers for up to 3 months. To prepare after freezing, defrost in the refrigerator overnight because it is a pretty solid mass and will take longer to thaw.
- Reheating: Place in a saucepan and heat through.
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Thera
This was really good! I took out most of the spice for kids’ sake. It came together super quickly and everybody really liked it. Speaking of freezing, I think I have made most of your white-bean recipes, and quadrupled and frozen some of them. While I was traveling last week my husband pulled one or two of them out of the freezer (I don’t know which, unfortunately!) and our oldest said, “What IS this?? It’s so good!!” (I think my husband got the credit for being an amazing cook.) So I can say that all the white bean recipes are great, and they apparently freeze and defrost even better. We’ll definitely add this one to the rotation. We used stock we made ourselves (I freeze veggie scraps from chopping and boil them for a while when the container gets full — cheap, rich, and easy, if always a bit different) and added chopped carrots to the vegetables at the beginning and chopped frozen spinach at the end.
Deb Esling
Help! My daughter is going vegan! I saw some of your photos/recipes on Instagram and came over to take a look around. ALL the food looks fabulous. So I thought I’d start with this chili recipe … but I have no idea where to get nutritional yeast? Is that something I can grab at Publix? Or do I have to scout out a health food store? Thanks in advance. At least your site makes this new venture look easy 🙂
Brandi
Hi Deb! You can find nutritional yeast in most grocery stores these days. Both of my regular grocery stores carry them in the health food section or in the bulk bin section. Krogers carries it. If your local stores don’t then you can always order online, which is what I do because I prefer the brand online. Otherwise you can check health food stores too.
FYI just so you know, this recipe isn’t mine, it’s from the book reviews above I did. Look at my Recipe Index and you can see many of my recipes. If you’re new here, I’d suggest the “20 Minute Alfredo” and “lazy Day Tomato Bisque”…both reader favorites!
Deb Esling
Thanks so much for the guidance. I’m on it 🙂
Carol
I made the White Bean Chili this past weekend, and it was good, but would have been great as I couldn’t find dried white beans at my market, so in the interest of time, I opted for four cans of white beans, drained. Don’t do it. The rich flavor of the bean was just not there. (PS, I omitted the cloves. Just couldn’t bear the thought, ha ha.) I coupled this dish with your recent Magic Skillet Cornbread recipe…oh. my. gosh. Deeeeelicious!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Hi Carol! Ahh yes, I agree, canned beans just never end up quite the same way as slow cooking the dry beans, as she did in her recipe. Yay, sooo happy to hear you loved the cornbread, thank you!!
Lucie
There’s never enough make-ahead meals in my repertoire! Thanks for sharing this, the stew looks incredible. Ginny is such a talent, she has a knack for creating meals that get better and better with time.
Christina
Your pictures make this chili look so amazing. Your blog is seriously the only place I go to for recipes. Perhaps I should broaden my horizons but every time I look at other blogs I get stopped in my tracks cause they use oil or other weird ingredients i just don’t want to use. Your blog is perfect. Oil free and clean ingredients. But this recipe has great clean ingredients and with your mention of omitting the oil I just might give it a try. Would be so convenient to be able to make meals ahead of time ☺️
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
You are so incredibly kind Christina, thank you so much for such a thoughtful comment! You really need to know how much I appreciate them. Each time I see one of your pics on IG, I’m so grateful! So happy to hear my recipes are always such a hit for you, thank you so very much!
Jen
This chili sounds fantastic and, as always, your photos make my mouth water. I have really been struggling with meal prep lately. I so want to prepare my meals for the week in advance but I truly need guidance. I’m definitely going to check out this book!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
So sweet, thank you so much Jen!
Michelle
I’m so glad that you reviewed this book! I’m expecting my third baby in a few weeks and I’ve been eyeing this cookbook as a potential source of make ahead recipes to freeze for the family for after the baby gets here. It’s great to know how much you enjoyed it and how many yummy sounding recipes are included!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Awesome, congrats on your baby coming! I hope this book helps you out and makes things a bit easier 🙂
Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine
Ginny is such a fabulous cook! Always such beautiful easy recipes!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
I agree!
Florian @Contentednesscooking
Hmm, I have to admit I love all the recipes in Ginny’s cookbook and I posted a review recently, too. This looks sounds and looks so wonderful and amazing! I’m hungry and craving a big bowl. 🙂
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Yes, her recipes are wonderful! Had me drooling the whole time!
Jenn
I love Ginny’s book! So many great recipes and they are all family friendly and perfect for busy families (like mine!). I haven’t tried the white bean chili yet, but it looks awesome! And, yes, super easy to sub out the oil/butter!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Yes, definitely!! Super easy!
Natalie | Feasting on Fruit
This looks easy and flavorful and comfort food-esque, I really wish my stomach could handle legumes better because I would happily take a big bowl (especially that purple bowl, I love purple dishes)! Everything I’ve seen from Ginny’s book so far looks great, and I’m not surprised we already know her recipes are fantastic! Lovely review and I’m glad you mentioned the oil-free thing, good to know. And did someone mention peanut butter cup balls? 😉
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Oh no, so sorry to hear that about legumes! I literally eat beans all week long. I just love them. Thank you so much! I wanted to use the purple and red bowls because the soup is a very neutral color and wanted to showcase it more with some bold colors 🙂 Yes, I know you are oil-free too. So many of my readers are recovering from heart attacks and are specifically avoiding oil and high fat foods, so it’s important that I mentioned it.
Megan
HI!
Is there a way to enter the giveaway?
Thanks!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
I’m so sorry Megan, that was a typo, it’s just a review, not an actual giveaway! I have the link above though where you can purchase it if you like.