Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Quick White Bean & Chicken Chili

If you've put in long hours at work and want to just chow down quickly, but deliciously, then try out my Quick White Bean & Chicken Chili.


And it's all made with easily attainable 99c only Store ingredients. And cheap enough from regular markets or other discount stores.


White beans are milder than most other beans. So they won't overpower white meat breast chunks in a can.  But canned beans can be very salty, even the ones I got that are "in light seasoning." To see a version where I lighten the sodium load, be sure to read Hindsight at the end of this post.


If you've never had chicken from a can, it's really quite tasty. The can size is small, like canned tuna fish, but convenient for single servings. And the texture is similar to canned tuna. Usually chunks of breast meat is used. And believe it or not it tastes like real breast meat, not a processed loaf.. Also use canned chicken to make a fantastic chicken salad with my Tuna Salad with Green Olives recipe by clicking here.

Dried or fresh chilis are the main flavor for typical beef and bean chili. I always have a bottle of deep red dried chili powder in my spice rack. Since this is a single serving (at most 2) you can use less than a teaspoon. And I like to add a little chopped onion, garlic, and some black pepper. That's barely six ingredients, and common enough that I already have most of them in my cupboard.

So read on and try my easy to make Quick White Bean & Chicken Chili.


Ingredients
  • 15 ounce can of White Beans
  • 5 ounce can of Chicken - very similar to a can of tuna.
  • 1/2 small onion - any color. Use a 1/4 of a large or medium.
  • 1 teaspoon garlic - fresh or from jar.
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
  • Pepper to taste
  • Teaspoon oil

Directions
Roughly chop onion and fresh garlic clove (I used garlic from a jar for convenience.) Add oil to a pot over medium heat.


Saute onion for about 3 minutes. Add chopped garlic and cook another minute.

Pour in a can of white beans. Add a can of chicken. Lightly stir to mix well - I like to keep the chili chunky.


Sprinkle on 1/2 teaspoon of chili powder and add black pepper to taste.

Heat Quick White Bean & Chicken Chili until just starting to boil. Turn off heat and ready to serve. For extra flavor sprinkle  on some chopped onion, shredded or sliced cheese, and spice it up with your favorite hot sauce.


Hindsight
Now that's a lot of salt, using 2 canned main ingredients. That's why you see no additional salt in my cheap$kate recipe. The salt in this recipe mainly comes from the white beans. If you can find low sodium beans that's best. Even though the label of my beans said "light in seasonings" it still tasted very salty. Taste a teaspoon of sauce from your purchased brand to check salt level.

It's easy enough to dump beans in a strainer and rinse off about half the sauce, that should lighten the saline flavor. Or if you don't have a strainer add beans to a large bowl, add a couple cups of water, swish around and pour off 3/4's of the liquid.

You should add half a cup of water to replace the sauce. Now you can follow the directions above.

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