Vegan Black Bean Chili

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Vegan Black Bean Chili is a quick, easy and delicious vegan take on a classic Black Bean Chili with eggplant and zucchini giving it a perfect chewy and crispy texture. Enjoy as it is, or add some bread or nachos and your favorite vegan sour cream or créme fraiche alternative.

For the longest time I thought I didn't like beans and that I didn't like chili. Thanks, school cafeteria! I think their chili was actually just leftover bolognese sauce with beans added in (always mushy and weird) and served with rice. Let's just say it did not taste like what I now know a chili to taste like.

And dad's chili? Well, it's probably delicious - but it had celery in it, so I would never go near that. (Yep, celery is probably my only no-go. Still. Can't even keep the celery stick in my Bloody Mary for too long.)

Luckily, one day, I don't know why, I actually ordered chili at a restaurant. And it was amazing. I think that was actually the first time I really enjoyed beans as well. So thank you, whatever restaurant that was, you changed my life (OK maybe that's a bit dramatic - but it DID change it a little bit).

After that first encounter I remember craving chili, so I went to work creating my own. I knew I wanted it to have beans and I knew it couldn't take hours to make. So I did what I do - I researched, I researched some more, I researched even a little bit more, and then I came up with a recipe. I tried it out - and it was delicious from the start. Yep, a lot of research will do that.

Some years passed. The recipe remained the same. I made it at least once a month and it always turned out great. Then I embarked on a vegetarian journey for a few years, and the chili had to go. But oh how I missed it. The spiciness, the warmth, slurping it up with a piece of bread or some tortillas and a generous amount of créme fraiche or sour cream. But chili without meat? Nah! That's not a thing, right?

Wrong! It suddenly hit me - I can make this vegetarian! And so I did, or well, almost. I skipped the meat and since I'm not at all a fan of soy or tofu or any other meat substitutes I instead added in zucchini, cooked so it's still a bit crispy, and eggplant, cooked so it's still a little bit chewy. Eggplant is actually a great way to win over carnivores to a vegetarian dish like this - I get it, they miss the texture of the meat. I do too. But eggplant cooked well provides the same kind of chewiness, and so it provides an extra, "faux meat", layer for the chili.

Remember I said I made it almost vegetarian? Well, I did still use a cube of beef stock. It's just so hard to get the umami flavors right without it. And I was never too serious about the vegetarian stuff so in my book removing the meat was enough. But I know not everyone agrees - and you know what? I finally managed to get the umami just right, while making the dish entirely vegetarian (spoiler alert: tomato purée, lot's of it). Vegan, even, if you just skip the créme fraiche or replace it with your favorite non-dairy substitute. But that's not my forte so I'll leave the choice to you.

Long story short! It took a while to create this Vegan Black Bean Chili recipe - but it won't take you long in the kitchen. I did the groundwork so you can skip the research - and now you can also enjoy this deliciously simple Vegan Black Bean Chili at home.

Did you try this recipe? If you did, please leave a comment and/or a rating below! Or just leave a comment anyway - I love hearing from you. I also love seeing your version of my creations - so please tag me on Instagram if you post it!