Cheddar Chili Bean Muffins #MuffinMonday

Made with leftover chili con carne, these cheddar chili bean muffins are a wonderful savory bake, perfect alone or as an accompaniment to your meal.

When researching recipes for another post, I came across a dish I had never heard of called fritoque (pronounced free-toh-kay.) It was on the menu of a Mexican restaurant in San Antonio way back when, made with cooked beans, broken tortilla chips and cheese. One variation on the recipe was a substitution of chili con carne for the beans. 

I made the chili then I made a hybrid fritoque that was half beans and half chili. Then I ran out of time to edit the photos and create the post before the event deadline, so I’ll have to share it another day. It was really tasty! 

But meanwhile, I had leftovers of the chili-bean mixture and using it in muffins seemed like a great idea. I’ve made chili cheese dog muffins before and they were fabulous. This recipe is very similar but no weenies. 

Cheddar Chili Bean Muffins

If you don’t have leftover chili con carne, you can use canned but keep in mind that the moisture content of the canned chili may be higher so strain it somewhat if it’s really wet.

Ingredients

1 cup or 125g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 oz or 57g extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated, plus extra for topping, if desired

1 cup or 260g chili with beans

1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil, plus extra for the muffin pan

1 egg

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 6-cup muffin pan by brushing it with a little oil. 

Combine your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cheese in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your egg, oil and chili with beans.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stop when it’s still quite dry looking.

Divide your batter between the 6 muffin cups.

Sprinkle the tops with the extra cheese, if using.  

Bake for 20-25 minutes in your preheated oven or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to continue cooling on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

It’s Muffin Monday, our first of 2023! Check out all the great muffins my friends are sharing with you today. 

• Almond Flour Banana Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Apple Bran Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Bran Buds Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Cheddar Chili Bean Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Cinnamon Crumb Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Dried Fig and Pineapple Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Persian Love Cake Muffins from Magical Ingredients
• Small-Batch Double Chocolate Banana Muffins from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

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Chicken Chili Verde – Instant Pot

Cooked completely in an Instant Pot, this Chicken Chili Verde is flavorful, delicious and easy! Serve yourself a warming bowl of this chili tonight.

My family knows that my favorite kind of book will contain both recipes and stories. I call them cookbook memoirs and have just discovered via a quick Google search that cookbook memoir is a legit genre. Amazon calls them food memoirs, culinary biographies or culinary memoirs. 

A few years ago my elder daughter gave me Julia Turshen’s book Small Victories for Christmas and within just a few hours, I had bookmarked 23 recipes I wanted to try! I haven’t actually made them all yet but every one I have cooked has been delicious.

Twenty-three bookmarks!

Her quick chicken chili verde instructions weren’t even strictly a recipe. They were just a small paragraph on a page headed Seven Things to do with Leftover Chicken but when I searched my Eat Your Books  bookshelf for tomatillos, it popped up. As you can see from my adaptation, I didn’t start with leftover chicken but using an Instant Pot made it pretty quick to cook anyway.

Chicken Chili Verde – Instant Pot

Adapted from Julia Turshen's Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home Cooking Triumphs <Amazon affiliate link. My two boneless, skinless chicken breasts weighed about 1 1/2 lbs or 680g. If your chicken weighs a bit more or less, it’s all good. I used some special little tomatillos from Melissa's Produce called tomatillos milperos, which are smaller with a more concentrated flavor and less acidity than the normal variety. I highly recommend them but use whichever fresh, firm tomatillos you can find if you can't put your hands on some.

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 lb or 680g)

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 medium onion

1 bell pepper

1 fresh jalapeño

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 lb or 450g tomatillos

1 1/2 cup or ml chicken stock, plus more as needed

1 can (15.5 oz or 439g) white beans

To serve:

sour cream

grated cheese

green onions

Optional: sliced fresh jalapeños

The little tomatillos

Method

Season the chicken breasts with fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Set aside.

Remove any peels and stems then, finely mince or use a food processor to chop the onion, bell pepper, jalapeño and garlic finely. I used my little food processor. 

On the sauté low setting, cook the onion, bell pepper, jalapeño and garlic in the olive oil in the Instant Pot until they are softened, about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Remove the husks from the tomatillos and cut them in pieces. Since I was using the small ones, I just cut most of them in half.

Add the spices, tomatillos and chicken stock to the sauteed vegetables. 

Turn sauté to high and bring the mixture to a quick boil then turn the Instant Pot off. 

Nestle the chicken breasts in the pot and pressure cook for 10 minutes. 

Natural release the steam for 10 minutes then manually release completely. 

Remove the chicken from the pot and, as soon as it’s cool enough to handle, shred it. 

Drain and rinse the cannellini beans. 

Add the shredded chicken back to the pot along with the rinsed beans. 

Sauté on low for about 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently and adding a little more stock (or water) if it gets too dry. 

Taste for salt and add a bit more if necessary, keeping in mind that the grated cheese will also add salt when you serve.  

Serve with sour cream, grated cheese and green onions. I also like to include some fresh jalapeño slices.

Enjoy! 

It’s MultiCooker Monday so my blogger friends and I are sharing recipes made with our small appliances. Check out the links below. Many thanks to our host and organizer, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Air Fryer Zucchini Spears (Toaster Oven) from Sid’s Sea Palm Cooking
• Chicken Chili Verde (Instant Pot) from Food Lust People Love
• Homemade Chicken Broth (Instant Pot) from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Homemade Pumpkin Puree - Pressure Cooker from Sneha’s Recipe
• Instant Pot Aloo Gobi Matar from Magical Ingredients
• Pumpkin Pasta Bake (Instant Pot) from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Multicooker Monday is a blogger group created by Sue of Palatable Pastime for all of us who need encouragement to make better use of our small appliances like slow cookers, Instant Pots, Air Fryers, rice cookers and sous vide machines. We get together every third Monday of the month to share our recipes. If you are a food blogger who would like to post with us, please request to join our Facebook group. 

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Classic Chili con Carne

This Classic Chili con Carne is made with ground beef, smoked bacon and tomatoes, and flavored with onion, chili powder, cumin and chili peppers. It's a warming bowl of comfort. 

This is the chili con carne I cook to make Frito pies or to serve on chili dogs. It's easy but rich with the addition of the smoked bacon. 

Classic Chili con Carne

The dark chili powder I use is the McCormick brand and is a mix of spices, including salt. Read your label and adjust the salt if your brand doesn't include any.  

Ingredients
1lb or 450g ground beef
2-3 slices thick smoked bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, minced
4 tablespoon dark chili powder 
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can (14 oz or 400g) finely chopped tomatoes plus half a can water
1 teaspoon sugar
1-3 red chili peppers
Salt to taste – depends on your chili powder (see note above)

Method
Brown your ground beef over a medium high heat. Add in the chopped bacon and fry until the bacon is a bit crispy.

Add in the minced onion and cook with the bacon and beef until it gets soft and translucent.

Spoon in the dark chili powder, along with the extra teaspoon of ground cumin.

Pour in the can of chopped tomatoes plus half a can of water and one teaspoon of sugar.

Add fresh red chili peppers to taste, removing the stems first.

Simmer the mixture, lid on, for at least half an hour or longer if you have the time. Salt to taste. Some chili powders are heavier on the salt content than others so, as mentioned previously, depending on your brand, you may not need much more. Or any!

This is great served over Fritos for a classic Frito pie or on top of Mexican Cornbread Waffles like these guys: 

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