Beanless Turkey Chili Over Rice

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NO BEANS ALLOWED!!!

I'm not a bean fan.

So growing up, chili on the menu never appealed to me. My mom never made chili. And school lunch chili? Double bleck! Didn't touch it.

So imagine my surprise when I first went to Hawaii and saw BEANLESS chili on the menu! It was served over rice topped with cheese and diced onions. After tasting, OMG! I realized I really liked chili!

Since I missed out all these years, now I make chili over rice a lot for Hawaiian themed potlucks and when I'm looking for a bowl of hearty saucy comfort food-- beanless style. (Sorry the pictures are so bad, but I guarantee you that it tastes better than it looks!)

The recipe below is an adaptation of my MIL's hand written "Zippy's Chili Recipe" (not sure where she got the recipe, since Zippy's guards the recipe and her's doesn't look like this Zippy's recipe reprinted from the Star Bulletin).




Yields 16 servings

Ingredients:

  • 3 lbs ground turkey (about 2 Costco size packs)
  • 3 onions, diced
  • 3 carrots, grated
  • 2 green bell peppers, seeds removed and diced
  • 2 celery stalks, diced
  • 2 cans of 15 oz tomato sauce
  • ½ c ketchup
  • 4 c water
  • 1 can (6oz) tomato paste
  • 6 cloves garlic finely minced
  • 1 t ginger powder
  • 3/4 c taco seasoning mix (McCormick’s from Costco)
  • 1 t pepper
  • 1 t oregano
  • 1 t sweet paprika
  • 3 T soy sauce
  • 1 T sugar
  • 1 T plus 1/4 c olive oil, divided
  • 3 T cornstarch mixed with 1 c water

Procedures:

  1.  Add 1 T olive oil to bottom of pot. Brown turkey.
  2. In a skillet, toast the 3/4 cup of taco seasoning mix with 1/4 cup olive oil for 1 or 2 minutes. Add this spice mixture to the pot with the ground turkey.
  3. Then add all the diced vegetables to the pot.
  4. Pour in tomato sauce, ketchup, tomato paste, water, soy sauce, sugar and remaining spices. (Basically all the remaining ingredients except the cornstarch slurry). Stir to mix. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 1 hr, stirring occasionally.
  5. The vegetables should all be very soft and partially disintegrated. Slowly add the cornstarch mixture to the chili, stirring to thicken.
  6. Serve over a small scoop of rice and top with shredded cheddar cheese and chopped green onions.