Homemade Vegetarian Chili
This simple vegetarian chili recipe tastes incredible! It's easy to make with basic pantry ingredients, vegetables and spices. Gluten free and easily vegan.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on October 3, 2024
It’s freezing cold outside, and has been for days. All I want to eat is cozy comfort food like this vegetarian chili recipe. It’s my favorite, and leftovers taste even better the next day.
This chili is perfect for watching football games with a crowd, since it’s a hearty meatless option that carnivores will enjoy. Plus, it can be vegan and gluten free if you choose your toppings carefully. This chili will satisfy everyone.
I originally published this recipe four years ago. Since then, it’s become your favorite chili recipe as well (four-hundred reviews and counting).
I’ve cheered when you’ve told me that it won your chili competition, and love hearing that it’s become a staple recipe in your kitchen. Hooray!
How to Make the Best Vegetarian Chili
While the ingredients in this chili recipe are super basic, the flavor is anything but. Simple ingredients can taste exceptional when they start off with aromatics like onion, carrot, celery and garlic.
I added traditional chili spices and some smoked paprika for an extra-savory, smoky note. Canned beans and tomatoes contribute delicious plant-based protein and heft.
Blending a small portion of the chili makes it look and taste like a chili that has been cooking all morning long, but it only needs about 30 minutes of simmering. That’s a little trick that I learned from my lentil soup, which is another cozy option for cold days.
Finishing off the chili with a little splash of sherry vinegar (or lime juice) and fresh cilantro makes it taste vibrant and fresh. The vinegar offers a little acidity and complexity, and it makes all the difference.
Watch How to Make Vegetarian Chili
Chili Toppings
This chili is dairy-free and vegan as written. You can keep it that way by choosing vegan toppings like sliced avocado and tortilla chips.
Here’s a full list of options:
- Grated cheddar cheese
- Sour cream or crème fraîche
- Sliced or diced avocado
- Tortilla chips (crumbled if desired)
- Additional cilantro
- Lime wedges
Leftover Chili?
This chili makes great leftovers, which keep well for four days in the refrigerator. Reheat your chili in a bowl, and it’s good to go.
You can also serve this chili as a protein-rich topping on nachos, baked potatoes or oven-baked fries. Stuff your burritos or quesadillas with chili. Why not?
Please let me know how this chili turns out in the comments! I always love to hear from you.
Stay warm out there, and if you love this hearty soup, be sure to check out the soup recipes in my cookbook.
Homemade Vegetarian Chili
The smoky, complex flavor of this simple vegetarian chili comes from basic pantry ingredients, vegetables and spices! It makes great leftovers, too. Recipe yields 4 large or 6 moderate servings of chili.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 medium red onion, chopped
- 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
- 2 medium carrots, chopped
- 2 ribs celery, chopped
- ½ teaspoon salt, divided
- 4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- 2 tablespoons chili powder*
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika*
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 large can (28 ounces) or 2 small cans (15 ounces each) diced tomatoes**, with their juices
- 2 cans (15 ounces each) black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 cups vegetable broth or water
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnishing
- 1 to 2 teaspoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar or lime juice, to taste
- Garnishes: chopped cilantro, sliced avocado, tortilla chips, sour cream or crème fraîche, grated cheddar cheese, etc.
Instructions
- In a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, warm the olive oil until shimmering. Add the chopped onion, bell pepper, carrot, celery and ¼ teaspoon of the salt. Stir to combine and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and the onion is translucent, about 7 to 10 minutes.
- Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika and oregano. Cook until fragrant while stirring constantly, about 1 minute.
- Add the diced tomatoes and their juices, the drained black beans and pinto beans, vegetable broth and bay leaf. Stir to combine and let the mixture come to a simmer. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally and reducing heat as necessary to maintain a gentle simmer, for 30 minutes.
- Remove the chili from the heat and discard the bay leaf. For the best texture and flavor, transfer 1 ½ cups of the chili to a blender, making sure to get some of the liquid portion. Securely fasten the lid and blend until smooth (watch out for hot steam), then pour the blended mixture back into the pot. (Or, you can blend the chili briefly with an immersion blender, or mash the chili with a potato masher until it reaches a thicker, more chili-like consistency.)
- Add the chopped cilantro, stir to combine, and then mix in the vinegar, to taste. Add salt to taste, too—I added ¼ teaspoon more at this point. Divide the mixture into individual bowls and serve with garnishes of your choice. This chili will keep well in the refrigerator for about 4 days or you can freeze it for longer-term storage.
Notes
Recipes consulted during the making of this recipe: vegetarian chili with winter vegetables (The New York Times), vegetarian chili (Saveur) and winter vegetable chili (Food and Wine).
Make it vegan/dairy free: This chili recipe is vegan as written. Just be sure to choose vegan/dairy free toppings, such as avocado and tortilla chips.
If you love this recipe: You’ll also love my butternut squash chipotle chili and sweet potato chili. You might also enjoy my hearty lentil soup and black bean soup.
*Spice note: If you are sensitive to spice or using particularly potent spices (I hear that chili powder purchased outside of the U.S. can be very hot), you might want to scale back on the spice here. Start with half of the amounts listed and add more to taste. That said, I enjoy spicy food and found this chili to be well-balanced as written.
**Canned tomatoes note: I recommend Muir Glen brand—they have the best flavor and their cans are BPA-free!
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
This looks delicious – making it tonight! Could i add an aubergine to it or would it ruin the flavours? Got some I want to get rid of :-) thank you!
I recently quit eating dairy and haven’t eaten meat for over 40 yrs. I’m always looking for new recipes and this Vegitarian Chili will definitely be one of my go to recipes especially with a crowd. I made mine a little spicier. I used 1Tbl of chili powder and 1 Tbl of chipotle chili powder. I didn’t have any of the vinegars and the lime was just perfect. The potato masher worked well with less clean up than the vitamix. I’ve enjoyed a many number of your recipes! Thank you!!
That’s some heat, Julie! I like it. Thanks for sharing. Really appreciate your review. :)
This is the best recipe, and one of my staples. I make a huge batch and freeze individual servings for a quick and healthy lunch or dinner. Sometimes I add mushrooms (chopped and sautéed with a bit of garlic before adding) sometimes yellow peppers. I use black beans and garbanzo beans because I love them
It’s a great staple for sure! Thank you, Kathleen.
Love this! I make it all the time, it’s so good.
Do you have calorie info for this? I want to add this to my meal plan but want to know how many calories I’m eating.
I’m glad! I’m actively working to fix the nutritional information on the blog. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Love this recipe! It’s a regular on our family’s meal plan and my boys love it. It doesn’t last long enough for me to know whether it’ll keep well in the fridge :-)
I use about half a teaspoon of hot chilli powder and it’s perfect.
It keeps great in the fridge! I love that it doesn’t seem to last long though. A great problem to have!
This chili is so good I made it twice in two weeks. The leftovers are amazing!
Perfect! Thanks for sharing, Cass.
Just made this, soooo easy to make and soooo delicious!!! Defiently the best chili I’ve ever had and I made which is unbelievable haha!
High praises! Thank you, Jessica.
Best vegetarian chili I’ve ever had!! Thanks for the recipe, Kate!
Ever! Love to hear that, Becky.
Hi, hopefully this comment reach you with me knowing this blog is some yrs old, but wanted to comment that I too will be making this for dinner. My husband and are trying to stay meatless 3xs a week with hopes of completely stopping….. Can’t wait to taste…..
I made this tonight! I used 2 packs of McCormick’s chili seasonings because I didn’t have any spices, still turned out lovely! I don’t even miss the meat!
I’m glad you didn’t miss the meat! Thanks, Amy.
I’m vegan for two months and do not like beans and legumes. I really have to LEARN to love them, so I’m trying lots of different recipes and over th past two months this is the second recipe with beans that I love, so thank you very much for this recipe, I made it last night and it is really good. I also added some corn.
I’m glad you are trying more recipes out, even if you aren’t a fan of beans! Sometimes it is just about having them prepared the right way. Thanks for sharing, Tanja! I appreciate the review.
This was amazing. Some stuff I didn’t have on hand (subbed chili powder for Blackened Seasoning) and I opted not to use the cilantro. But I loved it! I topped mine with fresh quacamole making it again soon.
I’m glad you were able to use what you had on hand and that it turned out well! Thanks, Tee for sharing.
hi
this chili is ok… keep cooking!
I’m sorry to hear you thought it was just ok! There are a lot of other recipes that hopefully you would like better.
Deeeeeeelicious thanks Kate! We really enjoyed it
Great to hear, Todd! Thanks so much for the review.
we tried this instead of the normal chili and found it a bit watery/low flavour. I think it was the celery as I’ve never seen that before.
I’m sorry you felt that way. Did you add any additional broth or water? If you used water, maybe use broth next time and can always increase the spices!
I have made this and your lentil soup numerous times! Absolutely amazing! Thank you!
Thank you, Tereza! I’m so happy to hear that.
Could I do this in a slow cooker? Would it still work if I just toss all that stuff into a crock pot and wait a couple hours?
Thanks, I’m learning. haha
Jessie
You could try it! I haven’t tried it. I would recommend to saute your vegetables first, so I’m not sure how much time you would save.
This was amazing! Easy to make and delicious flavor and texture. Will be a regular in my rotation.
Glad to hear that, Marla! Thanks for your review.
I love this recipe. I make a big batch of it every week now, often sharing it with my family and friends – if they are lucky. Thanks for such a great recipe. Definitely my favourite vegan meal.
You’re welcome, Eliane! I’m glad you like it.
I made this for my house warming party-it was a hit-big time-easy to make-didn’t have to do the blending thing-just simmered it-it was gone before the beef stew!Company loved it & said I should have made a double batch-I will next time for sure,thx great recipe!
Yes! That’s great. Thank you, Jeannie for sharing.
My kids, ages 13,11, and 9 loved this chili and didn’t even notice that there was no meat. My husband and I enjoyed it very much too. We always serve chili with grated cheddar cheese on top, and I had saltines, so we crushed those on top as well. The only ingredient that we didn’t include was the cilantro as the store was out of fresh cilantro. Thanks for another great recipe!
Hooray! Great it was loved by all. Thank you, Nicole for sharing what you did.
I’m from India and vegetarian so I decided to give this a shot—absolutely yummy!
Wonderful!
i LOVED this recipe!! tasted amazing, and felt so hearty – i really didnt miss the meat at all. this will be a winter favourite for sure!! (although as an aside i live in australia, 2 tablespoons of chilli powder would kill me lol – i just used a sprinkle of chilli powder, probably 1/4 of a teaspoon!!)
Yeah, chili powder outside of the US can have a lot more heat. Yikes! Thanks for sharing.
Ive always wanted to try and make homemade chili but I was always too intimidated. When I stumbled upon this recipe I knew I had to make it because this recipe seemed so simple! It came out so good!!! Just WOW! Thanks :)
I’m glad you stumbled on this recipe! Thanks for the review, Cort!
I made the recipe for a family with nothing but a million food sensitivies and a grandson recently diagnosed with diabetes. I didn’t know what to make for Mother’s Day and I found this recipe by accident. I altered it a little to include Barely Beef crumbles, *non meat. I left out some of the beans due to the carb content and one of my daughers is on a low/no carb diet. Plus I measure things by site so mine may have been slightly different. BUT….it’s delicious!!!!! I’m using crumbled taco chips which are gluten free instead of oyster crackers and for my non dairy family I have non dairy cheese and sour cream plus regular shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream. I love this so much that I will make it regularly for sure. We are serving it with mixed berries…low glycemic index…with either thick coconut cream or plain greek yogurt with pistachio nuts for dessert. This works for vegetarians, pescatarians, non dairy, low carb, low glycemic, and gluten free people all of which I have to feed. LOL.
I’m so glad this recipe was able to work with all the food sensitivities. Thanks for your review, Nancy!
Chili was AMAZING!! I’m vegan and it was perfect even my non vegan husband and kids loved it!!! This will definitely become a staple in our house.
Great! That’s wonderful. Thanks for the review, Amber.
I made this last night and was very tasty. However, I used dried beans I had soaked for 10 hours and I couldn’t get the black beans to cook all the way through(2.5 hours!). A friend suggested it was the salt which I added to the sauteeing veggies per the recipe. So, if you’re using dried beans, perhaps salting at the end is necessary.
Thanks for sharing, Mike! Way to plan ahead. :)
Delicious. I added a small zucchini, to balance out the sweet vegetables. Also, I needed a dash of ground ancho and ground chipotle powders to give it a little more depth and get it “off it’s feet.”
I’ll certainly make it again.
Thanks for sharing your variation! I appreciate your star review.
I made this tonight for my daughter and I and OMG so good, i added a bit more spice because we love all things extra spicy, thanks i will make this again for sure
Love extra spice! Thanks for sharing, Debbie.
Thank you very much!
I have made this recipe more than 10 times. Just delicious.
I am happy I have found your site. I love to exercise and cook great vegetarian meals to replenish after. So many times after researching veggie recipes I stumble upon desserts and sweets when I just want to eat balanced and complete recipes. Try Moroccan lentils, it’s best.
Thank you again!
10 times! I love that. I’m happy you found it too, Adil. Thanks for the review.
This is such a wonderful recipe! I’ve made it twice–so much fun to make!–and it came out wonderfully, with a third time subbing one of the three cans of beans for about a pound of ground beef (extra iron is always good for me)–can vouch that this recipe makes a lovely chili con carne! It’s been a joy to come home to a bowlful of your chili every night–so, thank you very much for the recipe!
You’re welcome, Emma!
I made this and it was delicious – I cooked it in a slow cooker and when dissolving the veggie stock used half hot water half cranberry juice to give it some extra sweetness. I didnt add the salt either as the stock cubes I use are a little salty already.
Thanks for sharing!
Delicious and very easy to make – high flavor:effort ratio!
Very glad I saw your note about the chilli powder (I made this in Melbourne) – 1 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper gave it a nice kick without being too spicy. 2 tbs would’ve made it inedible. (In Australia, unless you specify ‘paprika’, ‘chilli powder’ tends to mean hot.)
I’ve only made it once and had to make a couple of substitutions (used fresh corn instead of carrot, canelli beans instead of pinto, and a vegan chicken stock), and let it simmer about 2 hours. Excellent the next day too.
Cheers,
Bruce
Thanks for the comment, Bruce! Yes, cayenne is very different there. :)
Most bland chilli I’ve ever tasted. It might be quick and simple, but that’s well reflected in the result.
I’m sorry to hear that, Steve. What did you think was missing? You can always increase the amount of spices you do like. But be careful with the heat!
I have made this so many times for my guy and I that I can’t even count. It is absolutely fantastic! We omit the celery (allergy) and add in jalapeno, serrano, and habanero chilies. Cut the heat with a side of corn bread and you’ve got some of the best comfort food one can have!
That sounds like a great way to add some more spicy and delicious! Thank you, Kelsie for sharing and for the review.
This was delicious! Thank you so much for the recipe!
You’re welcome, Liora! I appreciate the review.
We love this recipe!! A regular dish in our household!
Great! Thank you, Laura.
The most flavorful chili ever! I added a jalapeno and a few dashes of smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce.
Delicious! Thanks for sharing. I appreciate the review.
Super yummy!
Thank you!
I made this Chili last night, adding chopped portobello mushrooms for their meaty texture. My boyfriend loved it and wasn’t quite convinced it was vegetarian. Thank you for sharing your awesome recipe, this one is a keeper.
Great addition, Veronica. Thanks for sharing!
Delicious! I goofed and bought 2 cans of pinto and 1 of black beans. It was still delicious, but the whole family agreed to try it the right way next time. :0)
I’m happy to hear that! I do love pinot beans. :)
I doubled the recipe and froze it into portions and now it’s the meal that keeps on giving during this cold Australian winter – thank you, absolutely love it!
A great one to freeze! Thank you, Dominic for your review.
Just made this and it is delicious! I added sweet potato and a can of corn to mine and my whole family loved it!
Wonderful, Sarah! Thank you for your star review.
The chili was delicious! Thank you for the recipe!
You’re welcome, Miki!
I made this (with a few variations) for a family visit and was cleaned out! I added fresh corn to the veggies, and substituted half kidney beans for the black beans. Skipped the cilantro. Used immersion blender for a couple of minutes, but still was too soupy so added some (cooked) quinoa. I think the quinoa added nicely to the texture and taste, but had to add more spices to compensate. Served with rice, grated cheddar and optional hot sauce. I actually doubled the recipe to put some lunch meals in the freezer; still very good when defrosted. Would give 4.5 starts if I could; only drawback is consistency without added quinoa (or rice might be good too).
Thank you, Susan for sharing! I appreciate the review and you sharing how you made it your own.
This is a regular staple the wife and I, so easy and tasty, leftovers are great the next day or two, and gets better as the vegetables marinate in the sauce. Have it with rice, sweet potato, tortilla chips, tacos etc, it’s very versatile, and it’s adaptable as well. It will completely change your view that rich tasting hearty meals require some sort of meat. I’ve also done the red thai curry, and the baked sweet potato/salsa/back bean rice recipes which have all been excellent. Thanks for creating the excellent website!
Thanks for sharing, Jules. I appreciate the review and how you change it up!
This was amazing but SO SPICY and I only did 1 tablespoon of chilli, so be very careful!! This is in Australia so it might be more potent
Yes, chili powder varies by region for sure!
I really liked the blender recommendation. It prevents a runny chili. Super tasty, especially after adding the red wine vinegar – gave it that extra pop.
Wonderful, Jessica! Thanks for your review.
Never made Chilli before, this recipe is AMAZING! I cooked it in my thermomix, for about 30mins. Served with some grated cheese and sour cream.
I’m in Aus, and used 1.5 tablespoon of dried chilli flakes.
I’m happy to hear that, Kassie! Thanks for the comment and review.
Great recipe! I made a low calorie version by doubling the vegetables and only using one can of black beans – that version definitely has to be blended at the end (tried skipping that step and it just didn’t work, after blending it really looked like a chili dish)… love it!
Great! Thank you, Nichole.