Thoughtless Thursday: White Bean Turkey Chili

When I called for inspiration last week on what I could do with leftover tomato paste, my Twitter pal Mamastephf was kind enough to send her recipe for White Bean-Turkey Chili.  It sounded divine and pretty light, so of course I had to make it.  I did make a few changes based on what I had on hand and adapted it to the crock pot for Thoughtless Thursday.  The end result?  Big yum!  So this was definitely a recipe I have to share for Souper Sunday over at Kahakai Kitchen.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo (her recipe calls for jalapeno peppers, but of course I was out of that, and I thought the smokey flavor of the chipotle peppers would be awesome in chili); for hotter chili use 3
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 1/2 cups navy beans, cooked (her recipe calls for 2 cans of Great Northern or cannellini beans, but all I had was dry navy beans–next time I’m going to add more beans–2 full cups at least)
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock (or 1 can chicken broth)
• 2 cups water (original recipe calls for 4 cups, but you don’t need that much liquid for this in the crock pot)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp Masa flour (my addition)
• 1/3 cup water (my addition)

Directions:

1. Brown the ground turkey and onions.
2. Add the minced chipotle peppers and adobo and mix well, cooking for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the cumin and tomato paste, mixing well.
4. Transfer this mixture to your crock (I used a 6 quart because it’s the programmable one).
5. Add the beans, broth, and 2 cups of water.
6. Simmer on high for 3 hours or low for 6.
7. Before serving mix the Masa flour with the 1/3 cup water and add to your chili.  If you’ve been cooking on low or your crock has flipped to warm, turn it up to high and allow to cook for another 10-20 minutes.  This will help thicken the chili.

This works out to 4 servings at 444 calories and 10.25 grams of fat a bowl (before you add your sour cream and cheese).  It’s really lovely and filling and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything not having tortilla chips (though I’m certain tortilla chips would be an excellent addition.  It should be adaptable to work with Phase to of South Beach or Sonoma.

Printable version.