White Chicken Chili

"Wanna make dinner tonight?" I asked Ben over AIM this afternoon. His answer was "Yes!" Which surprised me because I thought he'd be to tired and hurting too much after spraining his ankle at basketball last night. But to my astonishment he wanted to, and there started the back and forth...fish? chicken? chili? Chili! Such a good idea. I browsed my usual favorite blog sites and also food network and sent Ben some of the best of the best looking recipes. We settled on this one. I originally found it here, but want to give the original blogger its due.


We made a few slight changes one because I don't eat garlic. I know, i know everyone loves garlic but I, I hate it. So when Ben and I make dinner together theres no garlic in anything. As you can tell I will make Ben food with garlic in it, but I will not eat it myself. So we had to omit and we added a few things to compensate. It turned out really great. I've never had a white chili before, this was a really nice alternative to regular chili. Its not weighted down with all the heavy meats and oils and tomatoes as regular chili's are. So try it but don't expect it to be normal, but do expect greatness.

White Chili

1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions
2 jalapeño peppers
1/4 inch minced ginger root
1 lb chicken breast
5-6 white mushrooms
1 tablespoon flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 15 oz cans white beans
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 small tomato
3 green onions
jalapeño hot sauce

In a large sauce pan over medium heat pour in oil and bring up to temperature add chopped onions and chopped jalapeño pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add ginger and cook until fragrant, another minute. Add chicken and sliced mushrooms. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to cook chicken on all sides.


Sprinkle in flour and stir to coat (this is the thickening agent to help the broth get to that chili consistency rather than soup.) Cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Add broth, beans, cilantro, bay leaf, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender and chicken is cooked through will be about 15 minutes.

Discard bay leaf and then spoon chili into bowls and garnish with tomato, green onion and a few shakes of hot sauce.


We really liked this chili, we especially liked adding in the extra jalapeño and hot sauce. It really made the spiciness and the flavors of the other spices come through. The chicken was so tender after simmering in the liquid for a while. I would defiantly recommend trying this recipe.


Yummy, spicy, healthy...is there anything better? I'd give it 5 out of 5 stars. :) Enjoy!