Recipe: Sweet Potato Turkey Chili
NUTRITION COACHING AND MEAL PLANNING FROM YOUR REGISTERED DIETITIAN NUTRITIONIST HERE IN BOSTON’S BACK BAY
Fall is here! And while I’ll miss the beach days (or lack thereof thanks to such a rainy summer in New England), I’m ready to shift from cold dishes to warm, hearty meals. This chili is a favorite in our house, and it’s a perfect dish to freeze in batches for busy weeknights when it’s dark, cold, and you don’t want to cook.
The Dish
I love this dish for the flavors and for its combination of animal and plant proteins (turkey, quinoa, and beans). If you’re a vegetarian, you can swap the turkey for another 1-2 cans of beans and/or texturized vegetable protein (TVP). If black beans bother your digestive system, see below for my note on rinsing the liquid or consider using your beans of choice.
The recipe is written to be a slow cooker or crockpot chili, but you can adjust this for a Dutch oven or stovetop pot easily. To do that, you can cook the onions with the turkey, then add the potatoes to begin cooking for a few minutes before adding the remaining items.
Why Rinse?
In the recipe, I recommend that you rinse your quinoa and strain your beans. Why?
Quinoa has a natural coating called saponin, which can give the grain a bitter taste. Rinse it in a mesh strainer, mesh bag, or in a bowl by pouring the water off.
Buying low-sodium beans and rinsing them in a strainer can help lower the sodium content of the dish. Draining the liquid will also rinse away the more fermentable fibers (FODMAPs), making the beans a bit more tolerable from a gas and bloating perspective.
Click here or the image below to download your PDF of this recipe.
Nutrition Counseling & Meal Planning
This is a personal recipe that I added to EatLove, the recipe recommendation and meal planning platform that I use with patients. If you’re looking for nutrition counseling to help with meal planning, working through disordered eating, and learning how to fuel for your sports and activities, then reach out to me at heather@backbayhealth.com, follow me on Instagram @welltraveledhealth, or click here to schedule a discovery call.
