When I first begin to transitions to a whole foods life style, I used to try to substitute any meat type recipe with spinach or broccoli. From rice to pasta if one of the ingredient consisted of meats I would throw in spinach instead. It worked great for a while but I still lacked the daily amount of iron needed. So I decided I needed to switch things up and add natural iron- rich foods to my meals. The easiest food that came to mind after dark leafy greens were beans . I probably said it before on this blog but I really dislike beans. So it was pretty hard for me to go along with the idea of making a meal around beans when i pretty much grew up eating around the beans on my plate , but with some research I decided to do vegetarian chili. Its so easy and simple to make that i make it about every other week with a different special ingredient each time. This week was spinach and kale , check out the recipe below:
Leafy Vegetarian Chili
- 1 can of No Salt Added Organic Black Beans drained and rinsed
- 1 can of No Salt Added Organic Kidney Beans drained and rinsed
- 2 cans of No Salt Added Organic diced tomatoes
- 1/2 a bag of Organic Frozen Corn
- 1/2 a bag of Organic Frozen or Fresh Spinach
- 1/2 a bag of Organic Frozen or Fresh Kale
- Organic Spicy Chili powder seasoning
- 1/2 of an onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- red pepper flakes (optional)
Dice the onions and garlic and put in a hot pan with a little bit of olive oil, when softened add the beans and corn. Stir-fry the beans, corn and onions and garlic till they appear tender, than add the diced tomatoes and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the Spicy Chilli powder packet and stir evenly through the pot and let simmer for another 5 minutes. Mix in the spinach, kale and red pepper flakes and stir, simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve alone or with tortilla chip, over rice or sprinkled with cheese.
FYI : Adding a small can of tomato sauce will make this chili more of a soup type chili , you can also add vegetable broth for a richer taste if you don’t mind the sodium.
Happy Cooking!
