What other beans / veg work in chilli con carne?

[PoesyCherish]

I want to make chilli con carne but fed up of the same old recipe. We typically use brown onions, red kidney beans and chopped tomatoes. As well as changing it up a bit, I'd also like to bulk it out so it goes further and costs less per portion.

What other veg or beans do you put in?

I put a good handful of red lentils in mine. My sister uses a tin of baked beans in hers . Not my cup of tea but she likes it!

Grated carrot?

Veggie here so I either use brown, green or red lentils to replace the mince or just use a mix of vegetables.

I like mushrooms, courgettes, peppers, onions (red or brown), sometimes roasted butternut squash or sweet potato.

Any beans work, including baked beans as an emergency!

Lentils, grated carrots, celery, any sort of beans I can find in the cupboard! Black eyed, cannellini, borlotti.

Sliced/diced peppers, black beans.
Had sweetcorn in one once which was nice.

I put a tin of sweetcorn in mine. Always goes down well with anyone who has tried it.

Always add lots of diced peppers to mine!

Any beans work, including baked beans as an emergency!

This reminds me of being a student. I can't for the life of me remember what I was making but value baked beans were by far the cheapest so I used to just buy them and wash them in a colander to get rid of the tomato sauce.

Any veg work well, chopped peppers, lentils , finely chopped celery, tin of mixed beans

I use black beans.

Sweet potato and chick peas are lovely.

If I'm making a veggie version, and sometimes just because, I put chickpeas, baked beans and butter beans in with the kidney beans. I also use sweetcorn.

Baked beans (with the sauce! Balances the spice) and sometimes a handful of sweetcorn and peas. Maybe try red pepper, or black eyed peas? You can buy "Mexican beans" in a spicy sauce from most supermarkets which tastes nice too!

Black beans and sweetcorn.

I use 500g mince, one can of passatta, one can of red kidney beans, one can of black beans, and one small can of sweetcorn.

Chickpeas?

i buy the tins of mixed beans, add kidney beans, meat, grated carrot, finely chopped onion, peppers, courgette, and some red lentils/

We always have mixed peppers and mushrooms as well as a mix of beans

I used to work for nhs and we had to cook for up to 8 patients plus staff, on a small budget, we added tins of baked beans to our chilli plus very finely diced carrots and chopped peppers, as well as onion, garlic, tinned tomatoes, chilli powder. Rarely used jar sauces because we would have needed at least 2 and for less than half that price we could make our own, and it was better!

I like to add courgette, peppers, sweet corn and a tin of mixed beans. I added butternut squash last time which was a step too far for my children but I liked it.

Butter beans work fine. I usually add a time of them as well as kidney beans.

Tin 🙄

My favourite non meat chilli recipe that I always return to is by using butternut squash and black beans in place of mince.
This is with the usual tomato, green pepper, chipotle, cumin, oregano, etc etc.
Always turns out well with a dollop of sour cream with the juice of a lime stirred through.
I ALWAYS toast rice in butter before cooking - it goes nutty and tastes lovely with the flavours of the chilli.

I make colodado green chilli which needs tomatinos, difficult to get but some major supermarkets stock them.

Also do a summer chilli with pork mince, green beans and canellini beans.

We use a combination of brown beans and kidney beans (although I'll use any bean that's still in the cupboard), we add chopped paprika and occasionally mushrooms (and onikns and garlic of course). If we have celery or carrots available and DH's cooking then he'll add that too. We sometimes serve it with cauliflower rice if we're hungry but don't want to overeat. We serve it with a bit of sour cream or ricotta (because that's less calories).

if you want to ring the changes cut your onions chunky, cube rather than mince the beef, use a really good stock and add a couple of squares of dark chocolate once cooked slow. For added veg we like chopped peppers, chunky tomatoes, courgette and aubergine. For budget purposes I add a handful of porridge oats and a glass of water in 10 minutes before end of cooking time: a whole extra portion for next to nothing.