Vegan Chili (TVP Recipe)

Last Updated on December 21, 2023

Vegan Mexican Recipe🇲🇽– Vegan Chili (TVP Recipe) is easy to make, aromatic, and super delicious! This is one of my favorite one-pot meals. It’s so appetizing and also tickles your tongue!

Vegan Chili

Homemade Vegan Chili with TVP paired with sliced avocado, cooked rice, corn chips, tortillas, bread or cornbread, and vegan sour cream.

It’s not just a fantastic quick one-pot meal, but also perfect for doing batch-cooking for lunch box meal prep.

Love more Tex-Mex Vegan Recipes? Check out our Vegan Fajitas, Vegan Mexican Rice, and Mushroom Birria Tacos.

What’s Chili?

As you might be wondering why so many different names are all referring to the same dish. Chili, also known as Chili Con Carne, Chile Sin Carne, or Chile Con Carne).

It’s a dish originally made with minced meat, tomatoes, a Mexican spice blend( onion, garlic, cumin, paprika…etc. ), and chili peppers. It originated in Northern Mexico or Southern Texas ( It’s also classified as Tex-Mex cuisine).

Chili became popular among working-class Tejana and Mexican women. The Chili Queens of San Antonio, Texas were famous for selling their inexpensive Chili stew in their casual ” Chili joints”, giving a lot of Americans their first taste of Chili, which helped popularize Tex-Mex style Chili Con Carne throughout South and West.

However, it doesn’t really matter how many names this dish has, when you see one, you will know it! (Maybe I should say, when you “smell” one, you will know it!). 😚

Mexican-inspired Vegan Chili is packed with pungent aromatics and spices( you can smell it from miles away!). Bursting with flavors of Mexican spices in your mouth ( savory, tomatoey, peppery, and spicy), making this dish so hearty. It’s super addictive and I’m not lying!

Vegan Chili

To vaganize this classic Tex-Mex dish, all we need to do is by replacing the protein and use vegetable stock. The rest all stay the same.

I use canned Black Beans and TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) as my plant-based protein sources.

TVP is a meat substitute featured in many vegan and vegetarian recipes. Its unique chewy texture and mild flavor make it a great addition to our chili.

For this recipe, we don’t need to rehydrate TVP beforehand, simply dump dried TVP into the sauce. Don’t worry, it soaks up flavors very very well.

You might notice that I add “Garam Masala“ to my TVP Chili. What? Why is an Indian spice doing here!?

This is just my preference, as garam masala is a spice mix including cinnamon, peppercorns, cardamom, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cloves, mace, and nutmeg.

Just a small teaspoon of it, I found that it gives the TVP Chilli an extra sensational taste.

Is it illegal to cook chili with garam masala? Hey, we’re not breaking the law. ( Although a lot of hardcore Texan or Mexican food maniacs will disagree with me.)

Jamie Olive uses garam masala in his Bolognaise! What’s a chef’s flair? – is to give your food a bit of Attitude.😎

Ingredients for Vegan Chili

• TVP– TVP is commonly made from soybeans, but it can also be made from wheat, oats, or cottonseeds. If you can find TVP in your local stores, you can use crumbled firm-tofu as a replacement. (P.S. Break a block of firm or extra-firm tofu into small crumbs, squeeze out the liquid as much as possible, and bake in an oven or air-fryer until lightly crusted skin)It will taste similar to TVP.

• Black Beans – you can use Kidney beans too. I use canned black beans( rinsed and drained.) If you use dried beans, you need to precook your beans first.

• Small Diced Yellow Onion and Minced Garlic.

The Seasonings for Vegan Chili Sauce

• Tomato Paste and Tomato Puree– that’s non-negotiable, you know…

• Vegetable Broth (salt-reduced)– to have better control over our seasoning, we go for salt-reduced or low-sodium veg broth.

• Nutritional Yeast– the source of extra umami flavor.

• Mexican Spices – dried oregano, ground cumin, garam masala, smoked paprika, ground cayenne pepper, and salt.

• Chilies ( it’s optional) – this dish is supposed to be very hot. It’s ok to leave it out if you can’t handle the heat. Comfort foods need to make you comfortable first!

How to make Vegan Chili

Surprisingly, Vegan Chili is so easy to make, because beans and TVP don’t need a long cooking time. It’s actually like cooking Bolognese with a lot of spices.

Check the picture down below for an overall process shot.

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat, place small-diced yellow onion and minced garlic into the pot, and saute them until softened and fragrant without any color( if they start to get burnt, turn the heat down to low) It takes around 3-4 minutes.

2. Add tomato puree, tomato paste, and low-sodium vegetable broth into the pot and stir.

3. Followed by adding nutritional yeast and spices ( dried oregano, ground cumin, garam masala, smoked paprika, ground cayenne pepper, and salt) and stir until everything is mixed together.

4. Add canned Black Beans( rinsed and drained) and dried TVP ( textured vegetable protein)and stir, making sure they’re submerged in the sauce.

5. Put the lid on and turn the heat to very low. Let them very gently bubble away for 10 minutes until the sauce thickened.

6. After simmering for 10 minutes, the sauce should be reduced by half( if no sauce or too thick, add more vegetable stock around 1/4 cup, and bring it to a boil again). To taste first see if more salt is needed. Serve vegan chili hot with rice, corn chip, sliced avocado, lime wedge, and fresh herbs (cilantro). More sliced chilies to finish if you like, and dig in! 🍛

How much do you like Vegan Chili? Leave me comments down below😘 

More Comfort Food

• Tex Mex Paste (Hello Fresh Copycat)
• Cornbread Muffins
• Cilantro Sauce
• Black Bean Chili
• Whole Wheat Tortillas
• Sofritas (Chipotle Copycat)
• Vegan Chili 
• Vegan Birria Tacos with Consommé
• Vegan Fajitas
• Quick Vegan Birria Consommé
• Vegan Mexican Rice
• Sticky Corn Ribs
• Tomato Avocado Toast

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