Toning down a chilli

[5foot5]

DH and I do the 5:2 diet so two days a week we are limited to 500 calories. I have a recipe book with some good ideas in and recently I followed the recipe for a veggie chilli. It made enough for 8 servings so we ate a quarter of it one night and then I froze the rest in 3 batches.

It was quite nice but actually a little bit more fiery than I would normally like. I am wondering if there is anything I can do when we eat the remaining servings to take a bit of heat out.

Most of the advice I have found online suggests adding things like dairy or starchy ingredients. However, as this is for a fast day meal I don't really have the spare calories to accommodate this.

I was thinking of just adding some water when I reheat it and then simmering until the extra liquid has evaporated. Would that work?

Any other no or low calorie suggestions?

I mean, it's edible, but I would enjoy it more if it was a little less hot.

Low fat yoghurt or more tomatoes and fresh coriander would be my suggestion

The problem is that the stuff that makes chilli taste hot dissolves in fat, not water. So I don't think you would be able to tone it down by adding more water and then evaporating it.

Would a bit of yoghurt be low enough in calories?

You could try adding limejuice. I'm not sure it would tone down the chili, but it might provide a distracting alternative "cool" flavour. Or maybe add more tomatoes to dilute the whole thing.

Sometimes chilli heat seems to calm down a bit when the dish is a day or two old and the flavours all mature and settle in. So you could just wait and hope!

No that wouldn't work as you'd end up with the original strength again.

Add a tin of tomatoes, some extra beans and maybe some veg like butternut squash. You basically need to dilute the heat.

Then eat about half a serving size to cut the calorie content back.

Add some yoghurt to the bowl on serving as well.

Add sugar.

(I know you said you don't want to add dairy but if you take serving size down a bit you can still accommodate the calorie restriction)

As well as the above, eat it with something like cucumber and crisp lettuce or cabbage - that helps dilute the taste too.

If you eat it cold it will also taste quite a bit milder. So you could leave it as is and eat cold with a salad for extra crunch.

This ^

Unless you add dairy to it the only way to dilute the heat is to add what you have to a new batch of the chilli that you don’t add any chilli’s/chilli powder to at all.

So I would make a spice free version in the same quantity you have to also freeze and then when you want to eat it just mix the two together.

edit for typo

I use lime juice when I over spice chilli

Add a tin of tomatoes

Put some peeled raw potatoes in, heat for at least half an hour and take them out before eating.

Weigh the batch
Add an equal weight of tinned tomatoes, tinned beans, grated carrot, cooked onion.
This will dilute the heat and you have an extra batch.
Putting water in and cooking it down will not achieve anything . HTH

This

Add some lemon juice

I was always told to add sugar, maybe you could use the granulated sweetener? Otherwise it’s adding the same ingredients without the spice to dilute it.

Eh I'm not an expert but I think things like citrus or sugar work towards balancing the overall flavours. Don't think they would lessen the heat.

@5foot5 as it is now portioned and frozen not really much you can do, it would have been best to do what a PP suggested with extra ingredients, prior to freezing but the freezing will take the edge off and when served again with some soured cream/yoghurt and rice should counteract. Also if served in a baked potato should tone down the heat a bit.
I did this once with a Pico de Gallo and ended up doubling the quantity to make it less hot 🌶️

Wow so many suggestions so soon. Thank you everyone some ideas to try here

Maybe some low cal almond milk of skimmed milk.

Cook it with some chunks of potato in. That should absorb some of the heat, but as pp, the hot stuff is fat soluble. You could add some oil, cook it up a bit, cool it in the fridge and scrape off the solidified fat.

Potato’s can be used usually to counteract overly salted food but the pay off is pretty minimal.

They will absorb some of the liquid but it won’t do anything to make the dish less spicy.

Add some dark cooking chocolate. Takes the fire away and makes it smoother.

As above, sugar. Can be in the form of white granules, or something like tomato passata.

Tomato ketchup works brilliantly. If calories are an issue I’d imagine tinned tomatoes cooked low and long until thick would be as good.

Surely just bulking it up with bland veg would help? So grate corgettes into it? They are very abundant at the moment. OR broccoli stem? I always use that up when I make soup. I think it has very little flavour?