What’s the best recipe to warm up on a crisp Fall night? Sure, there’s a lot of great answers to that question, but I believe that nothing hits the spot when it’s chilly quite like a nice hot bowl of somewhat ironically named chili. And when it comes to chili, a personal favorite of mine this time of year is white chicken chili, substituting some of the zestier beefy flavors of the classic dish with savory and cheesy chicken goodness. You can imagine my excitement when we got the opportunity to bring you one of my favorite Fall recipes, because I was pretty excited, let’s dive into it and see why.
If you aren’t familiar with white chicken chili, then you’re in for a treat! As the name implies, instead of ground beef like a regular chili, this uses chicken breast instead and comes with an entirely different flavor profile. Classic chili is usually pretty zesty and can be made to be quite spicy, while white chili uses more savory spices and earthy flavors like cannellini or great northern beans with veggies like carrots and corn.
If you’re a fan of a little bit of spice, then there’s still a lot to enjoy with this recipe because use diced green chiles and some cayenne pepper to bring just a little bit of heat. This addition brought a fun and tasty complexity to the final dish. This was different than the white chili that I grew up with, but in a good way, the final product of this recipe has just the right amount of spice that almost made it feel Latin inspired; and when served with a few slices of avocado or tortilla chips at the end, made this a recipe that had a lot of great flavors, some more overt and some more muted, that all worked together to make a great dish.
Because there’s such a great combination of flavors here, this is a great recipe to add to or take from to make it just how you like. Add more cayenne if you like spice or mix in more cheese before you top it with more cheese at the end, because melty cheese is awesome. There’s a lot of options here so taste it throughout the process to get it just how you want. Just like a lot of soups and stews, you’re pretty much set with cooking this in a single pot, so feel free to experiment with this if you’re feeling adventurous. That’s half the fun of cooking, after all!
This was a recipe that we were very excited to get to make, myself especially, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did because there’s a lot to enjoy here. When you do make it yourself, tell us what you think in the comments or on social media, share it with someone that’s in need of a great recipe this Fall, and as always, we’ll see you next week with another tasty recipe. Enjoy until then.
