Ina Garten-Inspired Chicken Chili
Beef chili gets better the longer it cooks. Chicken chili does not, and cooks keep treating them the same way.
Chicken has almost no connective tissue to break down, so a long simmer only takes moisture out of it. An hour in the pot leaves you with dry strands floating in a good sauce. Roast the chicken separately, shred it, and fold it in for the last ten minutes — it stays juicy, and the browned surfaces bring something the pot could never have made.
The sauce cooks for an hour. The chicken cooks for thirty-five minutes, somewhere else.
Jump to the recipe ↓Ina Garten-Inspired Chicken Chili
Serves 8 · Main
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 50 min
- Total
- 1 hr 10 min
Moderate7 steps, 13 ingredients
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg bone-in chicken thighs, skin on
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions, diced
- 2 red peppers, roasted and chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tbsp chilli powder
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 x 400 g tins chopped tomatoes
- 2 x 400 g tins cannellini beans, drained
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- lime, coriander, soured cream, to serve
Method
- Roast the thighs at 200°C for. Cool slightly, then shred, discarding skin and bone.35 minutes
- Soften the onions in oil .10 minutes
- Add the garlic and dry spices and stir in the hot fat, until fragrant.30 seconds
- Add the tomatoes, peppers, stock and salt. Simmer , uncovered.40 minutes
- Add the beans and warm through.
- Stir the shredded chicken in for the last , no longer.10 minutes
- Finish with lime juice off the heat. Serve with coriander and soured cream.
Bloom the spices in fat, not in liquid
Chili powder and cumin are fat-soluble. Stirred into a wet pot they taste dusty; given thirty seconds in hot oil with the onions they turn fragrant and darken slightly. This is the single biggest difference between chili that tastes flat and chili that does not, and it costs half a minute.
Roast the peppers rather than sweating them
Fifteen minutes under a hot grill until the skins blister gives you a smoky sweetness a frying pan cannot produce. Steam them in a covered bowl afterwards and the skins slip off.
Acid at the end, always
An hour of simmering flattens a chili. A squeeze of lime stirred in off the heat brings the whole pot back into focus, and it needs to happen at the end — added early, the acid cooks away and takes the point with it.
Storing
Better on day two, and it freezes for three months. Reheat gently; the beans break up if you boil them a second time.
Questions people ask
Can I use chicken breast?
Thighs stay far juicier. If you use breast, roast it whole and shred it, and add it in the last five minutes rather than ten.
Can I use a rotisserie chicken?
Yes, and it is a good shortcut — you get the roasted flavour without the extra step. Use about 700 g of shredded meat.
Why did my chicken turn stringy?
It simmered in the pot. Cook it separately and add it near the end.
Is it spicy?
As written, mild. The heat lives in the chilli powder, so adjust that rather than adding fresh chillies late.
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Ina Garten-Inspired Beef Tenderloin: Tuck the TailA whole tenderloin tapers from thick to thin. Fold the narrow end under and tie it, or that end is well done before the middle is warm.