Description
Chicken + bacon are a match made in heaven, but adding smoky chipotles and fire-roasted tomatoes to this chili brings it up a notch. Super hearty and flavorful!
Adapted from Pinch of Yum’s Sunday Chili
Ingredients
Scale
- 6 slices bacon (raw), chopped
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 bell pepper, diced (color of your choice)
- 2 carrots or ~8 baby carrots, diced
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 3 chipotles in adobo, minced (or more if you like spice)
- 2 ½ tablespoons chili powder
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon oregano
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- two 14–ounce cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
- 6 cups chicken broth
- ~1 ½ pounds chicken breast (raw), chopped into 1-inch pieces
- juice of 1 lime
- two 14–ounce cans black or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
Topping ideas:
Sour cream/Greek yogurt, cheeeeese, scallions, pickled onions, cilantro, avocado… and chips of course!
Instructions
- Start with a cold pot. Add bacon and set to medium heat. Once bacon is crisped to your liking, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and let drain on a paper towel-lined plate, leaving behind bacon grease. Discard all but ~2 tablespoons of grease.
- Turn heat to medium-high and add in diced onion, bell pepper, carrots, garlic, and 2 tsp salt. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until onion becomes translucent and veggies begin to take on color, about 8–10 minutes.
- Add in minced chipotles, 2 ½ tbsp chili powder, 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tbsp oregano, and 3 tbsp tomato paste. Cook for another couple of minutes until tomato paste turns a darker red.
- Add 2 cans fire roasted tomatoes, 6 cups chicken broth, and chicken chunks. Bring soup to a boil, then let simmer for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.
- Before serving, add juice of 1 lime and the 2 cans of beans. Top each serving with all the yummies and enjoy!
Notes
- Hate prep work? You could throw roughly chopped veggies into a food processor and dice them up that way. Also, instead of chopping the raw chicken breasts, you could put them into the soup whole and, after the 30 minute simmering step, take them out and pull the meat.
- Crockpot Method. Sauté the bacon and veggies separately following steps 1 & 2, then add to a crockpot along with the rest of the ingredients (besides beans and lime juice). Cook on high for 4–6 hours or low for 6–8 hours, then add beans and lime juice.
- Instant Pot Method. The IP doesn’t thicken soup up enough for my liking so I would start with 4 cups of chicken broth instead of 6 and add more later if you need to thin it. Follow steps 1 & 2 using the sauté function to cook bacon and veggies, then add the rest of the ingredients (besides beans and lime juice) and set Instant Pot for 18–20 minutes. Natural release for 10 minutes, then add beans and lime juice.
Keywords: chili, smoky, chipotle, chicken, bacon
