Easy Vegan Chili

I wanted share my easy vegan chili cooked within 40 mins that uses simple at-home ingredients while only using one-pot (no one likes more dishes).

We love vegan chili in this house! Chili is easy to make, you can have so many variations, and depending on what you put in can be extremely healthy and packed with protein!

A lot of people don’t normally use recipes for chili because you can just throw a bunch of vegetables in a pot and it’ll taste pretty good, but if you’re new to being vegan or cooking and just want a quick and easy vegan chili recipe, try this one!

How To Make Vegan Chili

Chili is pretty straightforward because it’s a one-pot recipe, which is one of the reasons we love it but I’ll still walk you through step by step.

1. Dice onions, carrots, & bell peppers. Add to a large pot and sauté with olive oil, cook on medium heat until onions are translucent. About 5 minutes.
2. Add minced garlic to the pot, continue to stir.
3. Season mixture with cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt, and pepper.
4. Pour in vegetable broth and a can of diced tomatoes. Let simmer for about 5 minutes
5. Add dry lentils.
6. Open cans of beans, strain, and rinse with cold water.
7. Add in beans and corn and cook for an additional 20 minutes on simmer or until lentils are tender.
8. Serve chili in a bowl with preferred toppings such as vegan cheese, sour cream, avocados, or with tortilla chips. And a side of toast!

If you haven’t had toast with dipped in chili yet I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s an absolute game-changer and if you use a healthy option for bread you can boost the fiber and protein of this recipe!

Kitchen equipment I used:

• My favourite pot set – This is my first adult pot set and I love it. I’m sure there are some elite chefs that may scoff at this but it’s affordable, non-stick and works great for me and all the cooking I do in the kitchen.
• The 9-1 absolute unit Air Fryer, Instant Pot, Dehydrator – I was actually very anti-Instant-pot/Air fryer for a long time and bought a couple in the past and could never get them to work or make any of the food taste good. This spaceship of an appliance changed everything! I make everything in it now! Desserts, Dinners, Dog Treats, you name it and I can make it in this beast. Highly recommend!
• 5 tier dehydrator stand for Ninja Foodie – The Foodie comes with a lot accessories but we opted to get this one as well because we want to use the dehydrator a lot (especially for dog treats) so it made sense! It doesn’t have great reviews, most people complain about it coming slightly bent, which mine did too, but it works perfectly and is super vital to dehydrating a lot of treats at once. The slight bend in the metal doesn’t affect the product at all.

Easy Vegan Chilli

John Rush

This vegan chilli is easy, delicious and only requires one pot!

5 from 5 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 35 mins

Total Time 40 mins

Course Dinner

Cuisine Vegan

Servings 4 people

Calories 484 kcal

Equipment

• Pot

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 1 can Kidney Beans
• 1 can Bean Medley
• 1 Small Onion diced
• 1 Carrot diced
• ½ Red Bell Pepper diced
• 2 tbsp Garlic minced
• 1 can Diced Tomatoes
• ½ cup Canned Whole Corn Kernels
• 1 cup Lentils dry
• 3 cups Vegetable Broth
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 tsp Cumin Powder
• 2 tsp Chilli Powder
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

 

• Dice onions, carrots, & bell peppers. Add to a large pot and sauté with olive oil, cook on medium heat until onions are translucent.
• Add minced garlic to the pot, continue to stir.
• Season mixture with cumin, chilli powder, paprika, salt and pepper.
• Pour in vegetable broth and a can of diced tomatoes. Let simmer for about 5 minutes.
• Add in the dry lentils.
• Open the cans of beans and corn, strain, and rinse with cold water.
• Add in beans and corn and cook for an additional 20 minutes on simmer or until lentils are tender.
• Serve chili in a bowl with preferred toppings such as vegan cheese, sour cream, avocados, or with tortilla chips. And a side of toast!

Pups Notes

1. We used red lentils in ours but realistically you could use whichever lentils you wanted, as long as they’re dry lentils. Lentils from a can will not work well in chili recipes. 
2. Topping with sour cream and avocados with a side of toast is optional but highly recommended! (we use the Earth Island or Tofutti sour cream!)
3. Sub low sodium vegetable broth if you’re watching your sodium intake.

Nutrition

Calories: 484kcalCarbohydrates: 88gProtein: 29gFat: 3.5gSodium: 952mgPotassium: 1052mgFiber: 20gSugar: 12gVitamin A: 3902IUVitamin C: 45mgCalcium: 165mgIron: 7.5mg

Keyword chilli, vegan chilli

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Nutrition Facts

Chili can be extremely nutritious depending on what you put in it. We decided to make this easy vegan chili completely with whole foods and plant-based ingredients to give the maximum amount of nutritional density possible! Don’t worry though we didn’t sacrifice any flavour to do it like that!

I was able to portion this recipe out into about 4 bowls which I was happy with because it meant I could have extras all week for lunch. But as we’ve been discovering my portion sizes are quite large compared to most people so if you don’t eat a lot you can probably stretch this recipe further.

The nutrition information presented here is for all of the ingredients. I take all of the nutritional information from Cronometer a nutritional tracker website that provides you with a lot of great information, especially regarding micronutrients!

As you can see this vegan chili recipe is PACKED with nutrition!

In just one serving you’re getting 29 g of protein and a whopping 20 g of fiber! Some other notable nutrients you’re getting with one serving of our easy vegan chili recipe are 94.5% of your daily iron intake, 72.5% of your copper intake, 130% of your Vitamin A intake, and 50% of your vitamin C!

Some people might notice that it is a little high in your sodium intake at 40% of your daily intake, which really isn’t that high, but if it were something you were monitoring I would suggest using a low sodium vegetable broth and you’ll be set!

The avocado, toast, and sour cream weren’t accounted for in the nutritional information because those are optional and a lot of people will choose to use their own toppers.

Commonly asked questions about Vegan Chili

Most people have heard of vegetarian chili and probably vegan chili but most people are curious as to how it’s done and how you can still make it delicious! So I’m going to answer a few questions people commonly ask about vegan chili:

What is vegan chili made out of?

Here’s the thing with chili (and a lot of food) is most of the ingredients are already vegan! Beans, tomatoes, corn, onions, spices, etc. are all vegan! You usually only need to change a few ingredients. Instead of adding ground beef to ours, we added lentils and instead of regular sour cream, we used a cashew-based sour cream!

Is chili healthy to eat?

The answer is it depends! Our easy vegan chili recipe is extremely nutritious and healthy to eat but you can make chili a variety of different ways so it depends on what you put in it and what you top it with. But generally speaking, yes chili is healthy to eat.

Other recipes you might like:

• Easy Protein Porridge
• Vegan Loaded Sweet Potatoes
• Vegan Air Fryer Cinnamon Rolls

Want to try another chili recipe? I highly recommend the Edgy Veg’s Superbowl chili from her cookbook I highly recommend it’s one of my favourites, mainly because it has beer and espresso in it!

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