It’s Finally Chili Season – White Chicken Chili

You know it’s time for White Chicken Chili when the leaves change color and the temperature begins to drop!

There is finally a chill in the air here in Middle Tennessee and that means one thing, white chicken chili! Yum!! I vividly remember the first time I tasted this chili. It was a bitter cold December afternoon and my friend Jean and I were visiting an open house of one of her coworkers. Scattered throughout the house were tasty tidbits of food, but in the kitchen was a crockpot of amazing white chicken chili ready warm you up.

Jean’s friend graciously shared the recipe with us. It’s funny that from the recipe she shared and what we tasted, you could see that she had adjusted the recipe, substituting chicken breast for ground chicken. But that is what real cooks do, right? Adjust the recipes to their own liking.

I too have made my adjustments, enough so that I can safely call this MY white chicken chili recipe. There have been a few ingredient tweeks, but mostly I have tweeked the process. The result is a hearty, creamy soul satisfying chili.

I love soup and have quite a collection of soup recipes. It seems that many of them call for ‘cooked’ chicken. I generally use chicken breasts and therefore I am starting with raw chicken. My plan is to always cook the chicken with 3 goals in mind:

• don’t overcook the chicken
• infuse the flavor of the recipe into the chicken
• infuse the chicken flavor into the recipe

My process accomplishes all 3 of these goals. So here is what I do:

I poach the chicken in the broth and seasoning until just done. Its important to cut larger chicken breast into smaller pieces. This allows them to poach faster and prevents them from over cooking. Also when I shred the chicken, the smaller pieces make for nice bite size shreds, instead of large face swiping shreds! Haha!!

Since the chicken is being poached in the chili broth including all the seasonings (everything but the beans) the chicken becomes infused with the chili flavor. By the same token, as the chicken cooks the juices are retained in the soup. When the chicken is done, usually about 15-20 minutes, remove it from the pot and set aside for shredding, once it it cool.

If I am not in a hurry to get dinner on the table, I will allow the broth to simmer for awhile, adding more chicken broth if needed. This concentrates the flavors and allows them to meld. When I am ready to add the beans, I add the 2 cans of Cannellini beans. Then I use the immersion blender to puree the broth and beans to a creamy consistency. Next, I add the shredded chicken and the 2 cans of Navy beans. The result is a creamy hearty white bean chicken chili.

You may be curious about the seasoning for this chili. There is no cumin, no chili powder or pepper just the Green Pepper Tabasco Sauce. And the recipes uses 1/2 of a bottle! If you have never tasted the Green Tabasco, its much more mild than its red cousin. It’s wonderful flavor is what makes this chili so comforting on a cold blustery day.

I hope you will give this recipe a try. If you do, please let me know what you think of it!!!