The other day Vince shared a recipe on Facebook – Sweet Potato Chili. I wondered if that meant he was going to make the soup but when I asked him, he said no . . he wanted me to make it. I read through the recipe and it didn’t look like something I was going to like but, being the great wife that I am, I was prepared to make it. Today, I began getting out the ingredients and (1) it has 1 tablespoon of cumin and Vince does not like cumin at all and (2) it has cilantro and he doesn’t like that. I knew I could leave off the cilantro but I had to put something in there in place of the cumin. He googled “substitutes for cumin” and came up with several so I made it work.
This looks like two cloves of garlic, right?
We love garlic. You can see that my garlic and onions are starting to sprout. I need a darker place to store them!
I ended up googling more Sweet Potato Soup or Chili recipes and combining several to make what I thought would work for us. Some of the ingredients seemed weird but I did add peanut butter to the soup, as well as chopped jalapeno sausage.
This is the recipe Vince shared on Facebook.
Sweet Potato Chili
Ingredients
1 Tbsp olive oil, butter or ghee
1 onion sliced
1 ½ lbs ground turkey thigh, natural chorizo, or spicy Italian sausage
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp cumin
2-4 cloves minced garlic
3 medium sweet potatoes, chopped into 1/2 inch chunks (you can leave the skin on)
2 cups of water
4 cups of chicken broth or bone broth
1 small can black beans
¼ tsp cayenne or red pepper flakes to taste
Salt and pepper
Top with pumpkin seeds
Note: I left off the chili powder, because I don’t like that. I used 1 tsp. of cumin and 1 tsp. garam masala. I used 5 sweet potatoes and 5 cups of water with 4 tsp. of chicken flavored Better than Bouillon. I used dried black beans and cooked them in the pressure cooker before adding them to the soup.
Also, I added about a tablespoon of minced ginger, which I had seen on another recipe.
Another recipe I saw said to add 3 T. peanut butter so I did that and then served chopped roasted peanuts over the soup instead of pumpkin seeds.
Directions
Heat the oil or butter over medium-high heat in a large pot. Add the onion, meat, chili powder, and other seasonings. Brown the meat and crumble up. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside.
Add sweet potatoes in the same pot with the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Brown the sweet potatoes, add garlic, water, and broth. Bring to a low boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Using an immersion blender or a potato masher, blend up the sweet potatoes until smooth. Add meat, beans, and hot pepper, back to the sweet potato liquid and stir. Heat through and serve.
It was actually very good and I’ll make it again. We had all we wanted and I filled a half gallon jar with leftovers for another day. Love having leftovers.
Nelle Coursey says
Sounds good but I would have to sneak this one past Pat!! LOL
Susan Nixon says
I like sweet potatoes a lot, and Stacey made a wonderful sweet potato thing when we were on our women’s trip in September. I’ll have to get her recipe, because it was really good, and I’d eat it again … a lot.
Marilyn Smith says
This would not work for me. My husband would love it. Since I was a young child, I gag and upchuck sweet potatoes. I still cannot eat them without leaving the table to upchuck. I am not a fan of anything sweet. I was raised in a family where we had to eat everything on our plates. After seveeral failures they finally decided that Sweet potatoes would not be served to me. The smell is enough to make me ill. I wish I could get over it but it just does not work.
Rebecca in SoCal says
How odd. That’s like my husband and bananas! (Also, he doesn’t like any sweet food, either.)
Marilyn Smith says
Bananas were a problem for my older brother. I love bananas but like them still a bit on the green side, not too ripe.
Judy H says
Sounds good!
Speaking of garam masala, one of my favorite winter dishes is roasted chicken with garam masala and butter. I mix the seasoning with butter and then stuff it under the skin before I roast it. Sometimes I stuff the bird with pieces of chopped apple. It goes great with a dish of baked kale and butternut squash risotto. If you’re interested in that, I can send you the recipe.