The Turkey Chili Everyone Is Asking Me For
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Every year along with the winter season in Southern California, I get a flood of requests from friends for a great turkey chili recipe. Wanting to be helpful, first, I try to steer them away from turkey chili altogether. As it turns out, people do not find this helpful.
When that hasn’t worked, I’ve suggested they use my regular chili recipe and substitute ground turkey for the beef and pork. But turkey chili needs — and deserves — a recipe all its own.
The challenge with turkey chili is that ground turkey lacks the deep, meaty flavor of ground beef. (There’s a reason chili con carne is not chili con pavo.) That leaner, milder meat just needs a boost, which I give it in the form of more of everything, including time.
Start with a base of onion (lots), red bell peppers (more) and garlic (loads), cooked until this mixture reduces to about a tenth of its volume.
Add tomato paste, which is also caramelized in the hot pan, and loads of spices — a variety of chiles plus coriander, smoked paprika and cumin — and you have a chili paste that is layered and flavorful.
It’s worth mentioning that underneath many of your favorite red, chile-stained Mexican stews is a base of pureed tangy tomatillos. With that in mind, I add tomatillo salsa to this chili, to give it needed acidity.
Oh, and did I mention it’s all cooked in duck fat? Duck fat is luxurious, has a high smoke point, and adds a welcome nuance of roasted bird flavor. The result is a rich chili so delicious, and the meat so moist (because it’s not overcooked), you wouldn’t know it wasn’t made of beef.
Beans are my favorite part of chili (so I would have been kicked out of Texas long ago). In Mexico there’s a saying that if you need to feed more people, put more water in the beans. I say: If you need to feed more people, put more beans in the chili. This is a saucy chili, and it can handle another can (or three!) of beans.
The Best Turkey Chili Ever
Put the peppers, onions and ¼ cup of the duck fat in a large Dutch oven or soup pot. Sprinkle with the salt and cook over high heat, stirring often, for 20 minutes.
Add the garlic and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring often, until the vegetables are mushy and slightly browned. Reduce the heat if needed to keep the vegetables from overly browning.
Move the vegetables to the side and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of duck fat or oil to the bare side of the pan. Add the coriander, paprika, cumin and chili powder to the oil and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring often, to bloom the flavor of the spices without burning them.
Stir the spices in with the vegetables and return the mixture to one side of the pan. Add the tomato paste to the bare side of the pan and cook for about 3 minutes to caramelize it. (If the tomato paste is burning or smoking, add more oil or a splash of the chicken broth.)
Add the turkey and fold it in with the chili mixture. Put the lid on the pot and cook for about 20 minutes; remove the lid occasionally to fold the meat into the chili so it cooks evenly, until the turkey is cooked through; there will be no pink, uncooked turkey visible.
Add the broth, kidney beans (including the liquid in the can), salsa and pureed chipotle chiles and stir to combine. Bring the liquid to a simmer, reduce the heat to maintain a steady simmer the chili for 30 minutes to an hour, stirring often, to reduce the liquid and meld the flavors. (This is the perfect time to add more of any of the dried spices or chipotle chiles en adobo to make the chili your own.)
Turn off the heat and add more salt to taste and more chipotle en adobo if you want it spicier. Serve immediately and garnish with sour cream, shredded cheddar, diced red onion, jalapeno and corn chips, as desired. Or cool the chili to room temperature, refrigerate and serve the next day. Leftover chili can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to three days, or in the freezer for three months.
I use Trader Joe’s Salsa Verde, which I like because it’s not too acidic. If you want a sweeter chili, use a tomato-based salsa instead.
