A popular choice for all the family, these assemble-yourself veggie fajitas are quick to make and great fun to eat.

Kidney, black and navy beans make this chili a hearty version of the classic, full of vegetables, savory spices and fresh cilantro, too. Serve with a sprinkling of regular or dairy-free shredded cheese over the top, if you like.

Nachos with chilli beans makes a classic party dish and if you want to swap the kids weekend trip to the take away for a healthier alternative look no further. This cheap and relatively healthy recipe is comfort food at its very best.

For the Super Bowl, my friends and I usually serve food that represents the teams. And with Boston and New York playing this year, clam chowder seemed like the perfect fit.

But since I’m not committed to either the Giants or the Patriots, I couldn’t decide which style of chowder to offer. Did I want to serve the comforting cream-based New England style or did I want to serve the more lively tomato-based Manhattan style instead? Or perhaps I could offer both, and have people choose their favorite in a match called The Chowder Bowl.

It was a tough call and I was having a difficult time making a choice. Fortunately, my fishmonger made the decision easier for me. When I paid her a visit, all she had on hand were littleneck clams. I asked how many I’d need for chowder and she said, “With littlenecks, it’s not worth it. They’re too small. They’re not good chowder clams.”

“But it’s the Super Bowl this Sunday!” I said. “What should I do?” She looked at me and said, “When we watch the game, we like to eat dip.”

With that in mind, I took my bag of not-chowder clams and decided to follow her advice. There was a cream-cheese clam dip recipe in one of my Junior League books, but even after I spiced it up with some chiles and bacon it didn’t thrill me. Clearly, I still had chowder on the brain so I returned to my original plan. But this time, instead of just making chowder with clams, I also threw in some fish and shrimp to make seafood chowder instead.

Now, most people think of chowder as an East Coast dish but it also has a long history in Texas. There are several recipes for it in The First Texas Cook Book, which was published in 1883. And throughout he 1800s, the state’s newspapers published recipes, with a Galveston paper running a chowder tutorial on its front page saying that chowder was a favorite for parties.

The methods for making chowder haven’t changed much over the years, but for mine I swapped bacon for the salt pork and infused my tomato base with guajillo and chipotle chiles for some spice. For the seafood, I used clams, shrimp and red snapper, though you could easily throw in crabs, oysters, grouper, redfish or any other seafood that you prefer. This is a versatile dish.

I love seafood, and having a bowl full of some of my favorites makes for a hearty and satisfying meal. But one of the best things is that you don’t have to make a choice between the Manhattan or New England styles, as it combines the best qualities of both. The tomato and chile base is full of flavor. And since it’s pureed, it’s so smooth and velvety you might swear there’s a splash of cream.

This chowder will definitely be making an appearance on Sunday, along with some of my other game-day favorites. And sure, I might not be that invested in the actual game, but that doesn’t really matter. For me it’s the food served that’s always the true winner.

Spring rolls are great, and I love the flavors of bánh mì, so why not stick'em together? These rolls are stuffed with pickled carrots and daikon radish, cucumber, jalapeño, and cilantro (you can, of course, add whatever other filling you'd like. Tofu or shiitake mushrooms would be nice). The sauce is made with a mixture of homemade vegan mayonnaise and spicy chili-garlic sauce (yes, you can use Sriracha—try our homemade version!). Creamy, spicy, crispy, tangy, and a little greasy, they hit all the notes you want in a game time snack.

If certain folks had their way, chili would be made with nothing but beef, chilies, and the hair off a Texan's back. If you're one of those folks, well here's a recipe for you. Yippie ki-yay, and all that.
Well if you're one of those folks, move along, this is not the chili you are looking for.
If, however, you are open to such atrocities as beans in your chili, keep reading. Why does vegetarian chili get such a bum rap? I mean, there's the obvious: chili is a divisive issue, even (or especially?) amongst those who love chili.
But hey, guess what? Beans can taste good in chili. Tomatoes can taste good in chili. (Don't believe me? Try out this recipe). Heck, even pork and tomatillos can taste good in chili.
So why shouldn't we be able to make a completely meatless version that tastes great as well?
Turns out we actually have quite a few great tasting vegetarian chilies on the site already, but all of them (and pretty much every vegetarian chili recipe I've seen) fall under the fast-and-easy, 45-minutes-or-less category.
This in and of itself is not a bad thing—vegetarian chilis as a general rule don't need to be cooked as long as meat-based chilies because vegetables tenderize faster than meat—but long, slow cooking also nets you another benefit in the flavor development. Fast chili recipes are inevitably not quite as rich and complex as you'd like them to be.
My goal this week is to create a 100% vegan chili recipe that has all of the deep chili flavor, textural contrast, and rib-sticking richness that the best chili should have.

Ready for the table in no time, these enchiladas are a tasty recipe that the whole family will enjoy.

It's the first real hurdle in a resolution diet: the Super Bowl. Every year, millions of blossoming healthy eaters are trapped in a 10x10 room with 50 friends, a 50-inch television, and more temptations than a Motown reunion. And while I would never advise depriving oneself of nachos and beer, there are ways to curtail the damage to your diet.
Parking yourself by the crudité table is one option, as is loading up on less fatty foods like popcorn, salsa, and pretzels. If your friends are all classy-like, shrimp and other non-fried seafood are excellent choices as well. Light beer is an acquired taste, but Sam Adams makes a decent brew, and I've never heard anyone complain about Corona Light. Chili, which we've discussed here before, is another excellent way to chow mightily without torpedoing your diet.
You can bring your own, cram it with vegetables and legumes, and no one will be the wiser. White Chicken Chili and Pumpkin Turkey Chili are stellar selections, as is Winter Vegetable Chili, the cover recipe from this month's Food & Wine.
Though entirely vegetarian, the chili is substantial, and packs some serious heat. Bizarrely, the parsnips are the highlight, since they pair beautifully with the chipotles.
It's a sweet, smoky combination I would not shy away from serving to Mike Ditka, John Madden, or two of the three Manning brothers. If you've never bought canned hominy before, I found it in the Latin foods section of my supermarket.

I'm not sure I really have any business cooking a recipe for chili that's not only vegetarian—making it a contradiction in terms—but also pulled from Patricia Wells' The Provence Cookbook. I think we all agree that the French are many things, but chili experts is not one of them. It's more like a vegetable stew with a healthy kick of chili powder. But when you get down to it, who really cares as long as it's delicious?
This certainly is. Essentially a slew of vegetables sweated then simmered with puréed tomatoes, chili powder, kidney beans, and rice, the result is healthy, hearty, and cost almost nothing to make. The aromatic vegetables make a wonderful base for the tomatoes, while the rice carries it into a full meal.

This spicy twist on comfy old jacket potato and baked beans is full of lively flavours from around the world

Learning to cook dishes from another cuisine can leave me either inspired or disappointed, because the result can be as delicious as I'd hoped or totally awful. When the second scenario is the case, it's usually due to one of two things: using the wrong ingredients or not understanding the right technique. Both are unfamiliar when it comes to, say, a dish from Sichuan, China. My pantry isn't stocked properly, and I'm not ready to make a huge investment in ingredients for just one dish.
Thankfully, this version of Dan Dan noodles, adapted from the latest issue of Bon Appetit, is easy to pull off on both fronts: Besides Sichuan peppercorns, there's nothing too difficult to find (they'd be sorely missed, but you could make it without them), and the technique is as simple as using high heat and working quickly. It's a slightly Americanized version, yet the taste is wonderful, deep, and satisfying—and it comes together in less than 20 minutes.

I love easy cooking, especially on a Friday night after a long work week. I just want something fast and instantly gratifying. This one pot chili mac was the perfect thing. It was completely made up on the spot with a few ingredients. I love that you don't have to cook the macaroni seperately, it all goes in the same pot with the sauce!

You know those food magazines that you flip through while in the checkout line at the supermarket? The ones you put back on the rack, all the better for knowing that you can make a casserole out of a can of soup and 35 egg whites? Yeah, well, I buy those magazines. All of them. It is my secret shame.

But this week a magazine cover gave me the chutzpah to do what I’ve always wanted to… put Thai red curry paste in everything. Or at least chili! To be fair, the magazine was Clean Eating, which usually has pretty awesome non-soup can ideas. And the original recipe was even vegan, so yay.

This isn’t their exact recipe, I just ripped off the idea (jeez, I have some integrity). It’s just as awesome as you would imagine if you threw together a Thai curry and a chili. OK fine, maybe that doesn’t sound awesome, but it was! I used red lentils for texture and kept the main ingredients as is: sweet potatoes and big meaty kidney beans. It’s really satisfying and blessedly easy so make it the next time you want to switch up your chili repertoire. It makes a lot so freeze the leftover and have chili whenever you want.

In Texas, where chili purists abound, adding tomatoes or beans, or using ground beef, are all things that only a greenhorn would do to a good "bowl o' red." This version is much closer to the way chili might have been served to the cowhands from the chuck wagon.

The simple act of replacing meat with something healthier, like soy protein, can make a big difference to our health. Doing this on a regular basis, perhaps once a week or more, can add up to a lot in the long run. Meat is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, and it’s much better for your body if you can avoid it. I became a vegan last year, and I’ve never eaten healthier. You don’t need to become vegan (although I highly recommend it!) to eat healthier, but trying vegan or vegetarian dishes now and then can be a good and healthy experience.
I suggest trying out an easy-to-make vegetarian dish at first, something simple yet delicious. There are some good soy protein replacements out there, for ground beef, chicken, sausages and more. Like spaghetti? Try using the soy ground round instead of ground beef.
To get you started, I’ll give you one of my favorite, yet easiest to make, vegan recipes. This is my original recipe, so if you like it, you are obliged to close your eyes, and savor the deliciousness.

Was craving chili dogs today so instead of buying one of those high sodium vegetarian chilis in a can, I made it from scratch which is sooo much better.

I love thick, hearty chili in cold weather.  It’s always so satisfying and filling, so it makes a great comfort food…especially when served my favorite way:  over warm grits!

I finally got around to watching 'Brokeback Mountain' last night and aside from the fact that it made me weep, it put me in the mood for a hearty cowboy style chili. Got this recipe from Country Living website and veganized it by using tvp soy chunks instead of beef. It used corn masa mixed with water to thicken it in the end as well as pureed chiles that have been soaking which gives the chili an amazing red color. I'll post the recipe here with my substitutions.

In our house there’s two kind of chili. The Texas sized spicy kind we used to make when the men went deer hunting and came back with a buck. And then there’s the kind for little girls.

I gotta admit up front: the title of this article is somewhat misleading. Yes, we will discuss chili, and yes, it's the best chili I personally have ever made. But! to call something "The Best Chili Ever" implies that the recipe is perfect, and perfection implies that there is no room for improvement. I can only hope that others will continue perfecting the chili work that began on the Tex-Mex border and that I continue testing well after the last rich and spicy remnant is licked clean off the bottom of the bowl. With that disclaimer out of the way, lets move on to the testing. My first step was to set up some parameters that would define the ultimate chili. Certainly, there are disputes in the chili world as to what makes the best. Ground beef or chunks? Are tomatoes allowed? Should we even mention beans? But discounting a few people (who are most likely either from strange places like Cincinnati or Japan), I think we can all agree on a few things. The ultimate chili should: Have a rich, complex chile flavor (for the sake of clarity, I will spell the dish "chili", and the fruit "chile" for the remainder of the article) that combines sweet, bitter, hot, fresh, and fruity elements in balance. Have a robust, meaty, beefy flavor. Assuming that it contains beans, have beans that are tender, creamy, and intact. Be bound together by a thick, deep red sauce. To achieve these goals, I decided to break down the chili into its distinct elements—the chiles, the beef, the beans, and the flavorings—perfecting each one before putting them all together in one big happy pot.

I might like to think that my strawberry pop tarts were the hit of our New Year’s Day party, but it’s Tony’s roasted chili paste that friends are still talking about, and while Tony’s made a couple extra batches to give away, somehow we find ourselves opening the jars and digging in before we can make delivery. I don’t usually even like hot sauces or spicy food, but this is so good, I’ve been dunking broccoli spears into it as a snack, spreading it on crackers, wondering at breakfast when I can eat some next. So as a public service (and so our supply will last a little longer), I’m offering the not-so-secret recipe here, which Tony found in Nancie McDermott’s Real Vegetarian Thai, and is also conveniently posted on line. I’m pasting the recipe in, lightly edited, but do click over to the original to enjoy the talk of feisty coals and palm sugar kisses.

The only ingredient that can be tricky to find (and that involves a particularly time-consuming step) is the tamarind for the tamarind liquid. We’re lucky enough to live near loads of Asian markets, but you can find this ingredient online at one of our new favorite websites (check out those cooking videos!) or use freshly-squeezed lime juice sweetened with a bit of molasses.

Around this time two years ago, my best friend Keith and I hosted a chili cook-off. It was a memorable night of friendly competition. But perhaps the most notable part of the evening was that I made a vegetarian chili. And it won.

Meat chili is always delicious, and Keith's was no exception (a riff on this one). But we were cooking for 20 people, and part of my silent post-victory gloating had to do with the fact that his 10 pounds of losing brisket chili cost so much more than my winning humble cans of beans.

This recipe is not the same as that winning chili—I've been experimenting ever since with different veggie variations that put the old bowls of ground beef to shame. In this version, black beans get beefed up with chunks of sweet potatoes. The result is rich, sweet, and spicy, and should you be cooking for a group of your friends for the Super Bowl, it could be the perfect cheap option to impress your guests, even the guys.

When it comes to chili, I am a man with opinions. I had my first awakening in college with the kind of strict, fundamentalist Texas chili that eschews both beans and tomatoes. For years I just assumed that was the final word on the subject, and I annoyed friends and relatives if any chili didn't meet those specifications. Luckily, I've lightened up over the years, and have come to even appreciate the Cincinnati-style chili that I grew up on. But vegetarian chili? Can such a thing even exist?
After an epic Thanksgiving week, I was looking for a meat -free meal that could still stand up to the cold weather. I was drawn to this recipe from The Amateur Gourmet. No, this isn't quite the same thing as my beloved Texas chili, but it is feisty and surprisingly filling for a recipe that doesn't contain any meat. The bulk of each bite comes from beans and bell peppers, while a dose of chipotle gives it a smoky edge. The best part is that it all comes together in about 45 minutes.

In Spanish, chile con carne means “peppers with meat” and that’s what this dish delivers. Chunks of diced beef replace the usual ground mince, producing a meaty stew with flavours of chilli, peppers and tomato. Serve with the colourful turmeric rice on the side some sour cream and coriander (cilantro)leaves.

This chilli is great for casual entertaining - just lay everything out and let people add their own toppings

It has come to my attention that this Sunday is the Super Bowl. Now, I don't want anyone to think that I'm a girlie-girl who doesn't like sports. In fact, I'm a much bigger sports fan than my husband. I just don't see the allure of 300-pound men chasing a little ball around and jumping on each other. I like 250-pound men skating around and chasing a little puck, with sticks. I am Canadian, after all.

I love chili, but ever since reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and watching "Food Inc." I have a hard time making it with ground beef. Of course, on special occasions, I make Michael Symon's recipe with slab bacon and pork shoulder, but last Wednesday wasn't a special occasion. No: it was just a weeknight and as I found myself wandering the aisles of Gourmet Garage, I wondered: "What if I just get a bunch of vegetables and beans and cook them the way I cook Michael Symon's chili? Ya know: with beer and chilis in adobo and freshly ground coriander and cumin seeds?" The results, as you can see above, were so good even Craig agreed: "I don't miss the meat!"

When my grandparents were in graduate school at the University of Kentucky, they were—of course—homesick Texans. But they soon figured out that they could feel a lot closer to home if they indulged in that Texan classic, Frito pie.

If Craig had his way, this post wouldn't have this title. I just asked him, "Would you call the chili I made the other day the best of your life?" And he answered: "I don't even think of it as chili because there weren't any beans; just lots of meat and stuff. But it was certainly delicious."

Adapted from recipes in Southest Asian Flavors by Robert Danhi via Viet World Kitchen

Chili Mac (Adapted from Emeril Lagasse)

Chili con Carne (Adapted from Cooking Light)

Mary Ostyn has ten children, and has managed to shelter, educate, and feed them all on her husband’s $56,000 salary. She blogs regularly about her experiences at Owlhaven, and on September 1st, she released her second book, Family Feasts for $75 a Week. Last week, I got my hands on a (full disclosure:) free copy. I read it and tried two recipes, wondering all the while if a cookbook intended for large families could also help a pair of veggie-lovin’ Brooklynites.

Two years ago, on Valentine’s Day 2007, I made a White Chicken Chili from Cook’s Illustrated. It was delicious and fiery hot, flavored by not one, not two, but nine diced jalapeño, Anaheim, and poblano peppers. Sadly, I didn’t get to enjoy it until February 16.

The simple act of replacing meat with something healthier, like soy protein, can make a big difference to our health. Doing this on a regular basis, perhaps once a week or more, can add up to a lot in the long run. Meat is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, and it’s much better for your body if you can avoid it. I became a vegan last year, and I’ve never eaten healthier. You don’t need to become vegan (although I highly recommend it!) to eat healthier, but trying vegan or vegetarian dishes now and then can be a good and healthy experience.

This is a very simple, all-make-ahead bento. It consists of a vegetable-rich spicy vegetarian (vegan really) chili with kidney beans, plus healthy carbs in the form of homemade muffins. The basic pattern can be varied almost infinitely by changing the chili part and the muffin part. Here I have used non-vegan pumpkin yogurt muffins, but you could very easily make this a vegan combo by selecting a vegan muffin. And you could just as easily make this an omnivore’s feast by adding some lean ground meat to the chili.

So, on to the bento! Here are the recipes for Red Peppers With Maple Syrup and Chili and Sweet-Sour Red Wine Vinegar Chicken. I made a double amount of the chicken since I also packed The Guy’s bento, and there’s enough left over of the red pepper for another round of bentos.

"This is the chili recipe the gang eats at Purdue Boilermaker football games. I always prep and cook the chili the night before and then reheat the next day. This is a combination of many different tomato-based chili recipes. Good luck and enjoy."

Green chile pork stew with potatoes

But no matter what people say, I love my chili and usually, those that eat it love it, too. So here is some of my chili with measurements. Enjoy!

I t doesn't matter whether you're tailgating on the fly or preparing meals days in advance, because when the temperature drops outside, a hot bowl of chili is one of the most comforting dishes you can eat. Serve this with warm bread, a crisp salad, and something cool to drink. Before you begin, familiarize yourself with some popular peppers by checking out our visual guide to peppers.