I need the best vegan chili recipe for a cook-off.

Anyways, chili ...

Does everyone start with frying onions and chilis and then adding tomatoes to them to make the base sauce?

Try adding some roast ground cumin (about 2 tsp per onion) to the last minute of frying the onions.

A cautious splash of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar added at the end of the tomato reduction stage works well too, I find.
 
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This came out pretty good...best I've done so far. Maybe need to up the spices a but. But I'm very pleased with the outcome. I added some of my organic cacao powder. :)

7erynebu.jpg
 
Karen that looks great, I hope mine is as pretty!

OK, so tomorrow is the Chili Cookoff. I think this chili is going to be kickass. I've decided to call it Guilt-Free Chili since most if not all the others will be meat chilis.

Since there are a lot of people involved who are interested in healthy eating, I thought Guilt-free would attract them, too, since it will no doubt be the healthiest dish there. Cornbread will be a little fatty. ;)
 
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Oh god this thread has made me hungry. I love chili so much (but wouldnt bother posting my lazy recipe as its nowhere near as good as these). Good luck in the cook off tomorrow : D
 
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I added a heaping teaspoon of cacao powder. No idea if that was what I was supposed to do. I was afraid to put too much. So who knows if it even did anything. I only know it's really good. It seems to taste better now than when it was freshly made.
 
Exactly how do you add it to chili?

Melt it first? In powder form? Just dump a bar in?
If I'm using a bar, I break it up and melt it in at the end of the cooking. I use Mexican dark chocolate if I have it (which I do today) :). I like to make a *simple* mole poblano (and other peppers with it) type sauce that has chocolate in it.

I have these ingredients for a mole sauce saved to a recipe file but forget where I got it. I have made this sauce (usually with omissions and substitutions as that's how I cook), and it is great in/on lots of things. I'm not using this in today's chili, but am using poblanos, chocolate, tomatoes and some of the other ingredients. I sometimes sweeten chili with soaked yellow raisins.

1/4 pound sesame seeds
Olive oil, for cooking
1/4 pound almonds
1/4 pound peanuts
3 bananas or plantains
1 pound raisins
1/4 pound tomatoes
1 pound fire roasted poblano chiles, rehydrated in water
1/4 teaspoon aniseeds
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 ounce unsweetened Mexican dark chocolate


Real mole poblano sauce is awesome, but way above my culinary grade. :)

Thanks to you all for your great suggestions and the fun conversation about chili. Now that we are into autumn, chili season has officially begun, so I'm hoping to see some chili food porn! :D
 
I could never eat blow-your-socks-off chili because I can't handle spicy foods. But if you turned down the heat (considerably) for me, I'd eat your chili. Looks damn good. :)
 
I'll just have to make it again with melted chocolate. :)
 
My chili is often a bit like Tofu-'n-Sprouts' recipe that Sallyomally linked to above, in that I like to add lemon or lime juice to make it a bit tangy- T-N-S used a sauce which had lime juice. Spicy and sweet is popular with most people, but for some reason I tend not to like that so much. I'm going to try adding squash to a batch of chili soon though, just to try it. If I don't like it, I'll eat it anyway- I just won't make it again. :)

About when to add tomatoes or lemon/lime juice: I've heard that acid prevents beans from getting soft during cooking, so I usually add tomatoes and lemon/lime juice when the chili is almost done.

Good luck, Ledboots!