Chickpea Chili with Avocado Crema
While this chickpea chili uses both pork tenderloin and ground chicken, it remains on the lighter side. This chili has a fresh taste from the familiar flavors of lime and cilantro and gets its creamy richness from the beans and a smokiness from chipotles and adobo.
To get this recipe going, go ahead and put a large frying pan on the stove and crank it up to high. Once the pan is hot, add a touch of oil and add your peppers and onion to blacken and blister. Depending on how hot you can get your pan, this should take about 5 minutes. Try and move the vegetables around in the pan to blacken evenly on all sides.
Once your vegetables are properly blackened, place the onions aside and the peppers in a bowl and cover with a kitchen towel. Leave them covered for about 5 minutes. The steam should help loosen the skins of the peppers and make them easier to remove. While you’re waiting on the blackened vegetables, go ahead and start heating your soup pot over medium-high heat and dice up your pork tenderloin.
Uncover the vegetables and remove the skins, seeds, and stems from the peppers. Just do your best with this step and get as much as you can off on your first pass. It’s ok if you don’t get all the skin off or remove each individual seed. Once that’s done, place your blackened peppers and onions in a stand mixer with chicken stock, flour, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, and a can of cannellini beans, then process until smooth.
To the soup pot, add the oil and garlic. Cook the garlic for about a minute or until fragrant. Then, add cumin and oregano to the pot for an additional thirty seconds. Keep the spices moving around to avoid any burning.
Now add your ground chicken and let it brown for about 4 minutes. Once the chicken has cooked for a bit, pour in the contents of the blender. Add to the pot the remaining chicken stock, chickpeas, and the last can of cannellini beans. Simmer for 20 minutes while stirring frequently.
We’re getting close to the end now! Add in your chopped pork tenderloin and continue cooking for 10 minutes. We’re building layers here. Now, add some cilantro and lime juice and cook your chili for 5 more minutes and then remove it from the heat!
Serve the chickpea chili individually and garnish with diced tomatillo, cilantro, a scoop of avocado crema, and a lime wedge. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below. I hope you enjoy and I look forward to hearing from you!
This chili goes great with cornbread! Follow the link for my recipe!
Chickpea Chili
Ingredients
- 1 lb Pork tenderloin diced
- 1 lb Ground chicken
- 1 Serrano chile
- 1 Jalepeno chile
- 1 Onion peeled and halved
- 1 Chipotle chile canned in adobo
- 1.5 tsp Adobo sauce
- 1 Cup Chopped fresh cilantro
- 4 Limes Juiced
- 1 cup Tomatillo Peeled, washed, diced
- 4 cups Chicken stock
- 2 tbs All purpose flour
- 2 15 oz cans Cannelini beans rinsed and drained
- 1 cup Half and half
- 2 15 oz cans Chickpeas
- 8 cloves Garlic Minced
- 3 Cups Sweet corn
- 2 tbs Olive oil
- 1 tbs Cumin
- 1 tsp Oregeno
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 Avocado
- 1/3 cup Non-fat greek yogurt
Instructions
- In a lightly oiled pan, place serrano, jalepeno, and onion over high heat to blacken. Blister vegetables on all sides, then remove from the pan and place in a bowl and cover with a kitchen towel. Leave for 5 minutes. This should help soften the skin of the peppers making them easier to remove.
- Peel peppers removing stems, seeds, and skin. Do the best you can with this, but if you can't get all the skin off, its ok.
- Place peppers, charred onion, 1/2 cup of chicken stock, flour, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, and 1 can of cannelini beans in a stand mixer; process until smooth.
- Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook for about a minute stirring frequently to avoid it burning.
- Add cumin and oregono to the pan and saute for an additional 30 seconds
- Add ground chicken and cook for about 4 minutes then stir in pepper mixture, an additional 3.5 cups of chicken stock, and chickpeas, and remaning can of cannelini beans. Simmer for 20 minutes stirring frequently.
- Add chopped pork tenderloin and cook for an additional 10 minuts. Then stir in half and half, 1/2 cup of fresh chopped cilantro, and 1/2 cup of lime juice. Cook for an additional 5 minutes and remove from heat.
- Mash avocado in a bowl and stir in greek yogurt, juice from 1 lime, and 1/2 tsp of salt.
- Serve chili individually and top with chopped cilantro, avocado cream, and diced tomatillo.