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Soups and Stews

Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili

March 18, 2021 by Alexandra Daum
This vegan sweet potato chili makes good use of winter vegetables like kale and mushrooms for a tasty and filling stew. Nothing fancy, just stick to your ribs cold weather food.
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Close up of a bowl of sweet potato chili with avocado and pickled onion.

March still means winter vegetables in my part of the world. Over-wintered kale and root vegetables, purple sprouting broccoli, and, if you’re lucky, some hardier herbs like parsley.

Even though we’re seeing hints of spring in the crocuses and first shoots of wild garlic, it’ll be a little while longer before true spring produce starts to arrive. This sweet potato chili is flexible depending on what you have as well as being an excellent hungry gap meal.

Serve with pickled red onions, coconut oil biscuits or sourdough bread, and a bit of avocado and green onion or chives for an easy, filling meal that keeps well for a couple of days.

Table of Contents hide
Ingredients
Recipe Notes
How to Store
Expert Tips
More Warming Stews and Curries
Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili

Ingredients

Sweet potato chili ingredients with labels.

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

  • Sweet potato: use pumpkin or carrots as an easy sub for the sweet potato. Pumpkin is great but we have usually run out by this time of year.
  • Spices: a chili spice blend can be used in place of the spices listed if you’d rather. Smoked paprika adds a delicious smokey note, but sweet paprika can be used instead.
  • Tomatoes: canned diced tomatoes are best, but whole will work in a pinch. Fresh work in summer, too, in an equal amount.
  • Black beans: rinsed very well, especially if canned. Kidney beans are a good substitution for black beans.
  • Kale: lacinato kale is pictured. Switch out the kale for chard, spinach, rucola (rocket/arugula), or other hardy greens, depending on what you have on hand.
  • Vegetables: if you’re making this in summer or early autumn, try adding some red pepper, zucchini, or eggplant. As long as you keep the base ingredients (spices, mushrooms, tomatoes) the same, there is a lot of room for flexibility.

Recipe Notes

Top with anything you like. I love the acidity of pickled onions with a bit of freshness from chives and avocado, but you could also add cheese (vegan or not), sour cream, or yogurt. A dollop of avocado aioli would be great.

Make sure to adjust the level of spice based on your personal preference. I don’t consider black pepper to be spicy and like quite a bit of heat, but sometimes readers find a half teaspoon of black pepper to be overwhelmingly hot. If different people in your household need different levels here, leave it out and top your dish with hot pepper flakes.

How to Store

Storage: keep in a sealed container for up to three days in the refrigerator, without toppings.

Freezing: transfer cooled chili to an airtight container and freeze for up to three months. The sweet potato will be a bit soft when thawed but it’s not bad.

Three bowls of chili with a side plate of biscuits.

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Expert Tips

  • Sear the mushrooms: the mushrooms are cooked before onions or anything else in order to sear them and cook out much of the water. This makes for a much better texture.
  • Season to taste: as with any soup or stew, this should be tasted before serving and salt added to suit your preference.
  • Peel if needed: we very rarely peel sweet potato for dishes like this, but of course you can if you’d like. Keep in mind that the peel holds loads of nutrition and vegetable peels contribute vastly to unnecessary food waste!

More Warming Stews and Curries

Cauliflower, Sweet Potato, and Chickpea Curry
Winter Vegetable Minestrone
Moroccan Spiced Carrot Chickpea Stew
Chickpea Pumpkin Curry

If you make this Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili or any other vegetarian main dishes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.

Yield: 4

Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes minutes
Total Time 50 minutes minutes
4.80 from 5 votes

Ingredients

Metric – American
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 250 grams mushrooms diced
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 300 grams sweet potato or 1 medium sweet potato, cut into roughly 3 cm (1 inch) pieces
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt to taste
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper to taste
  • ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
  • ½ teaspoon hot pepper flakes to taste
  • 400 grams canned diced tomatoes
  • 300 grams black beans cooked or canned, drained and rinsed
  • 300 grams frozen corn
  • 125 ml vegetable broth or water
  • 50 grams kale de-stemmed and roughly chopped

Toppings

  • 1 Avocado
  • Pickled onions
  • Chives

Instructions

  • Heat a large pot over medium heat.
  • Once the pan is hot, add the olive oil and the mushrooms. Sauté for five minutes, avoiding stirring, to sear the mushrooms* and reduce the water content.
    1 tablespoon olive oil, 250 grams mushrooms
  • Add the onion and cook for another 2-3 minutes, or until softened and fragrant. 
    1 small onion
  • Add the sweet potato and cook for 3-4 minutes.
    300 grams sweet potato
  • Stir in the garlic, followed by the salt, cumin, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, and pepper flakes. Cook another 30 seconds, until fragrant.
    2 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
  • Pour the tomatoes into the pot and stir to combine. This will lift any spices that may be sticking to the base.
    400 grams canned diced tomatoes
  • Add the black beans, corn, and water or broth. Increase the heat to bring the chili to a low bowl, then reduce and simmer, covered, for 25-30 minutes.
    300 grams black beans, 300 grams frozen corn, 125 ml vegetable broth
  • After simmering, the sweet potato should be fork-tender. Remove the chili from the heat and stir in the kale.
    50 grams kale
  • Serve hot, topped with avocado, pickled onions, and herbs, or other toppings as you like.
    1 Avocado, Pickled onions, Chives
  • Leftovers will keep for 2-3 days, refrigerated in a sealed container, and can be frozen for up to a month.

Notes

* If the mushrooms contain a lot of water, you may need to increase the heat temporarily to help it evaporate quickly.

* For American cup measurements, please click the pink link text above the ingredient list that says ‘American’.


Nutrition

Serving: 1 Calories: 563kcal Carbohydrates: 95g Protein: 25g Fat: 14g Saturated Fat: 2g Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g Monounsaturated Fat: 8g Sodium: 798mg Potassium: 2481mg Fiber: 24g Sugar: 10g Vitamin A: 16182IU Vitamin C: 48mg Calcium: 235mg Iron: 14mg

Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.

© Alexandra Daum
Course: Autumn, Main Course, Mains, Soups and Stews, Winter
Cuisine: American
Diet Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian
Print

This post was first published in December 2017. It has been updated most recently as of March 2021.

Woman in garden adjusting peas growing on bamboo.

Occasionally Eggs

by Alexandra Daum

If you’re looking for approachable, seasonal vegetarian recipes, you’re in the right place! Occasionally Eggs is all about healthier plant based recipes that follow the seasons.

Find vegetarian staples, refined sugar free desserts, and hundreds of vegan recipes. All OE recipes are vegetarian, dairy free, and refined sugar free.

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Comments

  1. Allison says

    November 9, 2022 at 3:34 pm

    Hi! Do you have recommendations on cook times for using an instant pot? I was going to saute everything in the pot on sautee setting and then pressure cook for step 7 following sweet potato times (2-3 minutes), since the beans will be canned/cooked already.

    Reply
    • Alexandra Daum says

      November 9, 2022 at 4:02 pm

      Hi Allison, I’m really sorry I can’t be of help for this, but I really have no idea what any of that means! I’ve never used an instant pot, but I think about 3 minutes in a pressure cooker would be enough to cook all of the vegetables. I think you won’t get as good of a flavour from the shorter cooking time (because of the tomatoes, mostly) but don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

      Reply
  2. Ella says

    April 14, 2021 at 7:26 pm

    Hi Alexandra! Thank you so much for the recipe, they are always delicious. One question, I want to print some recipes (because I love them 😂) but in the option of print doesn’t include a picture 🙁 and I want to print them with the picture because they are beautiful, there is a way to update this it would be amazing ❤️

    Reply
    • Alexandra Daum says

      April 15, 2021 at 6:39 am

      Hi Ella, I had the pictures turned off because I was worried people would be upset about them using too much ink, but they’re turned on now!

      Reply
      • Ella says

        April 22, 2021 at 10:52 pm

        Thank you so so much just ordered your book 😊 love your recipes!

        Reply
        • Alexandra Daum says

          April 23, 2021 at 7:44 am

          Thank you so much, Ella!

          Reply

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