Guest Recipe: Sam’s Vegetarian Chili with Pasta

I like chilli and I love pasta, so this one’s a no brainer for me. I started making this dish with leftover chilli from the night before. I’d make a conventional chilli and always have some left over, so, for lunch the next day, I decided to cook it up with some pasta. Pasta is much lighter for lunch, and I loved how the two foods went together. So, I started making it from scratch for dinner too!

It’s quite unusual to find beans in a pasta dish, but they go really well together. Black beans are rich in antioxidants and are a good source of vitamins and calcium, while butter beans are packed with iron, potassium and magnesium, making this a healthy dish that tastes great. You could have garlic bread with this dish, grate some cheese on top, or keep it vegan. It’s so versatile you can change it up to how you like it.

This recipe is vegan, but it can easily be altered to suite fussy eater kids or those with other dietary requirements. Lots of kids are put off by the beans, so you can simply leave those out. If your kids really won’t eat it vegan, especially with the lentils, you can make a conventional chilli using mince meat and still serve it with pasta. You can also adjust the spice level if you don’t like a lot of spice, or you like more spice! If you’re gluten free this recipe works just fine with gluten free pasta.

• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 20 min
• Total Time: 30 min

Serves: 6

Category: Vegetarian,Pasta,Dinner

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 carrots diced
• 1 onion diced
• 200g red lentils
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• Half a teaspoon chilli powder
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can butter beans
• 300g vegetable stock
• 1 can tomatoes
• 500g pasta

Method

1. Fry the carrots and onion in the olive oil in a large pan.
2. Add the spices, and the lentils, and fry all together.
3. Add the tin of tomatoes, the vegetable stock, and the cans of beans, and simmer on a low heat. This should take around 20 minutes, or until the lentils expand and the sauce thickens. Stir frequently to stop the sauce sticking to the pan as it thickens. If it gets too thick, simply add more water and stir again.
4. Cook the pasta to how you like it. I usually use pasta shells and they take around 15 minutes to cook. Spaghetti will take around 7 minutes if you prefer to use that. I like my pasta slightly underdone, but if you like yours very soft, check it after the suggested time and if it’s not soft enough just leave it simmering for a few more minutes.
5. Serve the chilli on the bed of pasta, or mix altogether.

Samantha is a food and drink, and travel writer, based in Yorkshire, where she lives with her illustrator partner and their dog. She writes for a wide range of magazines and websites, some of which you can see on her website.