This Turkey Chili With Sweet Potatoes is fast and in one of the best 30 minute recipes that we have in our recipe binder.
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Turkey Chili With Sweet Potatoes
Since we started growing sweet potatoes in our garden, I was looking for more ways to incorporate them into our recipes. This is easy and perfect.
The kids and hubby love this turkey sweet potato chili recipe, so that makes it a winner in my book.
It is a hearty chili recipe so we typically serve smaller servings of cornbread, garlic bread or just a slice of homemade bread with butter.
This delicious sweet potato chili can be served year round. Everything in the chili recipe can be found at your local grocer.
You can also adapt the sweet potato turkey chili for your slow cooker and your Instant Pot. This truly is the best chili recipe!
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Ingredients
- Olive oil
- Medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into small chunks
- Medium onion, diced
- Minced garlic
- Chili powder
- Ground cumin
- Smoked paprika
- Salt
- Water
- Black beans
- Kidney beans
- Diced tomatoes
- Lime juice
- Granny Smith apple, diced
- Turkey Polska Kielbasa, cut into small chunks
- Optional: sour cream or greek yogurt, jalapenos, diced onions, diced tomatoes, bacon and cheese for topping
How To Make Sweet Potato Turkey Chili
- Place a large pot over medium-high heat
- Add oil, cut sweet potatoes, and onion. Cook until onions soften. Approximately 5 minutes
- Add ½ of the lime juice over the apples to keep them from turning brown
- Add the minced garlic, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, and salt
- Continue cooking for one minute, stirring constantly
- Add the water, and bring to a simmer
- Cover, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer for approximately 10 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are tender
- While the sweet potato mixture is cooking, heat a large skillet pan over medium-high heat
- Add the turkey kielbasa to the pan
- Cook approximately 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until the turkey is lightly browned on each side. Set aside
- Add the black beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, and remaining lime juice to the sweet potato mixture
- Increase the heat to high until the mixture returns to a simmer, stirring often and making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot
- Reduce and cook over medium heat, and add the turkey kielbasa and apple. Stir well
- Let simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and serve.
- Top with your favorite chili toppings
Variations of turkey chili
Chili variations are really endless. It’s important to build a thick, rich, tomato base but beyond that, you just need to find ingredients that go well together in this setting.
Here are some options you can try:
- Different kinds of beans: pinto, cannellini, black-eyed peas
- A basic mirepoix with onions, celery, and carrots
- Turkey Kielbasa is a great option, but you can also use lean ground turkey, ground chicken, lean ground beef, or ground pork or leave out the meat all together
- You can use fresh diced tomatoes, fire roasted tomatoes, or a little bit of tomato sauce for a boost of that tomato flavor
- Instead of the sweet potatoes, you can use butternut squash instead
- This can also be made in a crock pot instead of on the stove
FAQs
How do you make turkey chili from scratch?
Making any kind of chili from scratch is very easy! All it takes is to start with the right base ingredients, sweat them in the pan first, add in the liquid, bring it to a boil, reduce the heat and add any extra mix-ins, and simmer.
What is the best secret ingredient for chili?
This really depends on what you want your chili to taste like. The secret ingredient in this recipe is the lime juice.
What can you not put in chili?
Some people say that beans don’t belong in chili, however, adding beans is done everywhere just the same. The point is that you can add many different ingredients and still make chili. For example, in this healthy turkey chili recipe we used a large sweet potato which isn’t a common ingredient.
Can I make turkey chili dairy free?
Yes! In fact, the only dairy that’s added is the sour cream as a topping. All you need to do is leave off it off to make the chili dairy free.
Turkey Chili With Sweet Potatoes
Equipment
- Large Stock Pot
Ingredients
- 1 ½ tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium sweet potato peeled and cut into small chunks
- 1 medium onion diced
- 1 ½ tbsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp chili powder
- 4 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 ¾ c water
- 1 15 oz can black beans
- 1 15 oz can dark red kidney beans
- 1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
- 3 tsp lime juice
- 1 large Granny Smith apple diced
- 1 13 oz Turkey Polska Kielbasa cut into small chunks
- Optional: sour cream or greek yogurt jalapenos, diced onions, diced tomatoes, bacon and cheese for topping
Instructions
Notes
- Place a large pot over medium-high heat
- Add oil, sweet potato and onion. Cook until onions soften. Approximately 5 minutes
- Add ½ of the lime juice over the apples to keep them from turning brown
- Add the minced garlic, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, and salt
- Continue cooking for one minute, stirring constantly
- Add the water, and bring to a simmer
- Cover, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer for approximately 10 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are tender
- While the sweet potato mixture is cooking, heat a large skillet pan over medium-high heat
- Add the turkey kielbasa to the pan
- Cook approximately 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until the turkey is lightly browned on each side. Set aside
- Add the black beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, and remaining lime juice to the sweet potato mixture
- Increase the heat to high until the mixture returns to a simmer, stirring often and making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot
- Reduce the heat back to medium-low, and add the turkey kielbasa and apple. Stir well
- Let simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and serve.
- Top with your favorite chili toppings
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