There are a number of cookbooks this spring I’m wildly excited about and this exceptional vegan chili is from one of them. It is from Jess Damuck’s Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook and I’ve been making it regularly ever since I saw an early version of the book last year. I’ll talk a bit more about the cookbook down below, but we’ll jump into the chili details first. Jess calls it her Very Good Vegan Chili. I double the recipe and cook it in the absolute largest pot I own – freezing the extra portions for later. It freezes brilliantly. The chili is bold, thick flavor-packed, and primed for lots of toppings.

What I Like About This Chili

The two stand-out things I love about this chili are the flavor and the texture. Both are fantastic. Jess describes a chili full of “simmering on the stove all day” flavor, in minutes. Using smoked paprika and fire-roasted tomatoes absolutely contribute to hitting that mark. On the texture front, she has us puree a small amount of the chili with a hand blender, to lend a rich, creamy vibe when it is re-incorporated. This is a super clever technique I’ve used when making ribollita, but it never occurred to me to try it with chili. Total game changer!

Key Ingredients:

• Beans: This is a triple-bean vegan chili. The beans are the stars. Jess lists a mix of black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans. You can use canned beans or the equivalent amount of beans cooked from dried. Sometimes I use a blend of both depending on what I have on hand or in the freezer. I encourage you to experiment with different types of beans. One version I did that was extra good swapped Rio Zape beans for the pintos.
• Chile Powder: Ok, here’s where you *really* need to pay attention. There is a wide range of “chile powder” out there. Chile powder can be pure, single-varietal chile powder, a blend of pure chile powders, or a blend of chile powder and other spices. Jess likes to use ancho chile powder in this chili, I tend to keep guajillo chili powder on hand lately, so I’ve been using that. If you have a chile powder you know and love, use it. The key: don’t go overboard. You can always add more, a bit at a time, but if you make your chili too spicy, it’s hard to go back. For a large pot like this one, Jess would use 4 tablespoons of ancho chili powder, I’ve been starting with 2 tablespoons of guajillo chili powder. Make notes so you can adjust in the future.
• Tomatoes: As I mention in the recipe below, I make this with crushed tomatoes because that’s what I tend to keep on hand. Jess calls for diced in the original recipe. The key is: fire-roasted. It really brings some added depth and dimension to this chili.

Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook

Take a peak at a few of the photo spreads from this book. As a life-long Californian I lost my mind (in a good way) when I first saw Health Nut. It has 70s California health food vibes throughout, and my co-op nostalgia kicked in hard. The fonts! The graphics! Omg the recipes!

The sun-drenched photography is by Linda Pugliese and some amazing double-exposures by Roger Steffens. If real food with hippie vibes through an updated lens is where you want to be as a cook, track this book down. I know a lot of you were fans of Salad Freak, also by Jess, Health Nut is her follow up. You can follow Jess here.

Having a great chili recipe in your back pocket is never a bad idea. It’s legitimately the perfect go-to if you’re feeding a crowd. A chili like this one is both fantastic, and can accommodate the whole range of eaters – vegetarians, gluten-free, and dairy free. It’s great alongside this skillet cornbread.  

More Chili Recipes

More Bean Recipes

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