The Yeo 4 Bean Chilli

Prof Giles Yeo PhD, MBE

Featuring:

Pulses

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 6-8

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 35-40 mins

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed

3 tins chopped tomatoes

1 jar (about 200g) sun-dried tomatoes in oil

2 tins red kidney beans (in water), drained

1 tin chickpeas (in water), drained

1 tin haricot beans (in water), drained

1 tin butter beans or cannellini beans (in water), drained

1–2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chilli powder (or chilli flakes, to taste)

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Sea salt and black pepper

To serve:

Tortilla chips and/or crusty bread

A genuinely simple, low-cost, store-cupboard chilli that proves tins can make a properly nutritious meal.

Method:

Start with the sun-dried tomatoes
Lift the sun-dried tomatoes out of their jar, reserving the oil. Roughly chop the tomatoes and set aside.
Soften the onion and garlic
Add 2 tablespoons of the reserved sun-dried tomato oil to a large pan or pot over a medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook gently for 5–7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a further 1–2 minutes, until fragrant.
Add the spices
Stir in the cumin, chilli powder and cinnamon. Cook for 30–60 seconds, stirring constantly, until the spices smell fragrant and coat the onions evenly.
Build the tomato base
Pour in all 3 tins of chopped tomatoes and add the chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Stir well, breaking down any large tomato chunks with the back of a spoon. Half-fill one of the empty tomato tins with water and add that too, swirling to capture any remaining sauce.
Add all four beans
Drain and rinse the kidney beans, chickpeas, haricot beans and butter beans, then add them all to the pan. Stir well to combine everything evenly.
Simmer
Bring to a gentle simmer, then reduce the heat to low. Cover partially with a lid and cook for 30–35 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened and the flavours have melded together. Add a splash more water if it looks too thick.
Season and finish
Taste and season generously with salt and pepper. Adjust the spice level with more chilli powder if you’d like it hotter.
Serve
Ladle into bowls and serve hot with tortilla chips, crusty bread, or both — perfect for scooping up every last bit of sauce.

Engaging Kids

Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.

Kids in the kitchen

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Activities

While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.

Sensory

Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.

Serving

The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.

Prof Giles Yeo PhD, MBE

Professor Giles Yeo is a Cambridge-based scientist whose research explores how genes influence appetite, feeding behaviour and body weight. He is a fellow of Wolfson College, Honorary President of the British Dietetic Association, and an award-winning science communicator. Giles is also a BBC broadcaster, podcast host (Dr Giles Yeo Chews The Fat) and author of Gene Eating and Why Calories Don’t Count. He was awarded an MBE for services to research and science communication.