We have tons and tons of bags of beans. I’ve rarely cooked beans from dried, but I’m getting pretty good at it these days.
White Bean and Chorizo Chili
Discovered and adapted from here
- 1 16-oz bag dried cannellini beans, covered in 2 inches of cold water, soaked overnight
- 2 T garlic
- 2 medium red onions
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 lb chorizo sausage
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 2 t chili powder
- 2 t ground cumin
- 1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes
- 1 T Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 300F. Drain beans and return to bowl used for soaking; set aside. Time to get your knife work out of the way. Peel red onions and cut in half through root end, then coarsely chop. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cut a slit in chorizo sausage link and remove meat from casings; discard casings. Add sausage and ground turkey to pot and cook, using a wooden spoon to break up into small pieces and stirring occasionally, until browned all over. Using a spider or slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a medium bowl, leaving fat in pot. Add garlic and onion to pot and cook, stirring often to dissolve any browned bits on bottom of pot, until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in chili powder and cumin and cook until spices coat onion bits and start to stick to bottom of pot, about 2 minutes. Break up tomatoes with your hands and add to pot along with their liquid, then stir well to loosen any stuck-on spices. Add drained beans, meat, kosher salt, a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper, and 6 cups water and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, then transfer pot to oven. Bake chili, peeking in oven and stirring a few times, until beans are creamy and tender, 1½–2 hours. Some beans will split and burst before others are tender. Keep baking until all beans are creamy. If water level drops to the point where it no longer covers sausage and beans, add more water just to cover. Remove pot from oven and carefully use back of wooden spoon to mash a few beans against side of pot. Let chili rest about 10 minutes, then taste and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper, if desired.