Monday, April 11, 2011

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili

By now you probably wont be surprised to see another sweet potato recipe from me, but you might be surprised at the choice. In chatting with a friend the other day I had an idea for this Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili. In this case I chose to have beef in the chili, but you could easily make this a vegetarian dish. I also decided to leave out tomatoes completely. This chili is mildly spicy (it could be tweaked hotter with more spice), but by omitting the tomato, we skipped the acidity. We served this with a blue cheese and scallion biscuit (I'll post that recipe when I get it just so). I had some black beans on hand that I had soaked and planned for a different meal; normally I would add more beans, but we still enjoyed this as it is written. . . . We both went back for seconds and Hubby said he wouldn't have minded thirds.


1½ lbs grass-fed beef
1 large sweet potato (chopped)
1 large onion (chopped and browned in olive oil)
1 cup red wine (optional)
2½ tsp Ancho chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
2½ tsp ground cumin seed
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups black beans (soaked and cooked until fork tender, substitute canned if you prefer)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
water or wine as needed to keep the chili moist while it cooks


Brown the onions in olive oil in a stock pot, remove and set aside.
Brown the grass-fed beef with the chili, paprika and cumin, add the sweet potatoes, onions, beans, wine, water and remaining spices. Simmer until everything is well-blended and the sweet potato is tender and begins to break down.
Serve with biscuits or crackers.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

OMG!!! this is some awesome chili... I just wanted to keep eating it.