Stretching Food Resources | Frugal Meals | Black Bean Chicken Chili

Things are getting a little scary out there with articles on possible food shortages. 

Having some healthy delicious meals you can make with beans and minimal amounts of meat is very frugal and helps stretch resources. This was how I fed my large family for many years. 

I'll be sharing some of these meals over the next few blog posts. 

Black Bean Chicken Chili was a big hit with my family. 

This meal can easily be made meatless as well or with less meat then the recipe calls for. 

This recipe makes a lot of chili. It freezes very well if it is more than you need. The recipe can also be cut in half. 

I've posted step by step pictures on how to make this meal below the recipe. 

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Black Bean Chicken Chili
3 cups dry black beans
12 cups water
1 T salt
1 large onion, chopped
1 ½ lbs boneless chicken (can be thighs or breast), cut into bite size pieces
1 T minced garlic
Olive oil
1 cup frozen corn
1 can Rotel type tomatoes (spicy tomatoes)
2 T chili powder
1 T hot sauce, opt

Put beans, water and salt into a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and let simmer for 2 ½ to 3 hours or until beans are tender and cooked. After beans have cooked, drain off about 2 or 3 cups of the liquid and reserve for later.

In a large frying pan cook onion, chicken and garlic in olive oil until the chicken is completely cooked and the onion is soft. Add this to the beans.

Add frozen corn, tomatoes, chili powder and hot sauce (if using) to the bean/chicken mixture. Add some of the reserved bean juice if needed to reach your desired consistency.

Serve this meal with tortillas, salsa and big green salad.



The first step is to assemble your ingredients

Add your beans to a 6qt pot and add water

And salt…

Bring to a boil. Slowly reduce the heat over 5 minutes and put a lid on the pot and turn the burner to low. Slowly reducing the heat over 5 minutes before putting the lid on will help the pot of beans not to boil over.

Let the beans cook for 2 ½ to 3 hours or longer if you live at higher elevations. Check the beans at the end of the cooking time. When you blow on one, the skin should crack. When taste one they should be nice and soft, not hard in any way.

When the beans have finished cooking it is time to prepare the rest of the ingredients. Chop up your onion

And your chicken. My chicken in the first picture was still frozen; I use boneless, skinless frozen chicken thighs and as you can see, after it has defrosted and was cut up it is not as much as it may have looked like in the first picture.

Now add a little olive oil to a fry pan and cook the onions and the chicken

Add the garlic

When it is done add the cooked chicken and onions to the pot of cooked beans

Add the corn

Add the can of tomatoes. I call for Rotel tomatoes in my recipe but have since worked to use only organic tomato products (trying to avoid GMO products as much as possible). The brand I am using is Muir Glen Organic Roasted Tomatoes with Peppers.

Add the chili powder

The Tabasco

Stir and simmer a bit to blend flavors and serve for dinner!! I added a nice green salad with homemade dressing, tortilla chips and organic salsa. My family really enjoys this meal and I hope you do to!