I love a good old veggie chilli!

Even before I began eating a vegan diet I often preferred to cook up a veggie chilli over a beef one. I think it’s more the textures and flavours of the dish than the actual meat itself that I fell in love with. The spices and the kidney beans are really what make a chilli.

Actually come to think of it, I usually find it’s the textures of a dish and the context of the food that I find draws me in…. for example I always loved my mum’s homemade chicken pie with veg and gravy, but I think I actually just have a thing for gravy smoothed over pastry and veg, I don’t think it really matters so much what the pie contains! Similarly tofu scramble on toast satisfies me just as much as traditional scrambled egg would have done.

(I now can’t get a vision of pie and gravy out of my mind!)

So, whilst a chilli is good… I wanted to change things up a little bit and up the protein count In the process. Beans! Beans! Beans! I also wanted to get a little saucy with a flavoursome cheese-style sauce drizzled over the top. I think the sauce makes a lovely rich complement to the dish but you could always have it without.

This dish also reminds me a little of a classic lasagne, with it’s lovely layering!

This is a super simple meal that looks great in the centre of the table, well that is until you cut into it, then it gets a bit messy! This serves 4 but you could easily use large tortillas to serve more, or make your own. I have used regular tortillas here, as I am not gluten free (although I often opt for recipes that are), but you could easily sub these for GF wraps available in many supermarkets.

Recipe: Mexican Bean tortilla stack

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 tbs olive oil
1 onion-finely chopped
1 red chilli- finely chopped (or up to ½ tsp dried chilli flakes)
2 cloves garlic- finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbs ground coriander
400g can black beans
400g can red kidney beans
400g can chopped tomatoes
100ml vegetable stock
A bunch of spring onions- sliced
350g sweetcorn (canned or frozen)
4 wholemeal tortilla wraps (regular or gluten free)
Vegan cheese sauce- see note below

Method

Heat oil in a large pan and gently fry the onions for around 5 minutes until soft. Stir through the chilli, garlic, cumin and coriander and cook for a further minute.

Pour in the beans, tomatoes and stock. Simmer for 10 minutes. Whilst this is simmering make up the cheese sauce- see below. Stir through the spring onions and the sweetcorn.

Place a tortilla wrap in the base of a spring form cake tin- approx. 20cm diameter. Spoon over ¼ of the mixture and spread evenly. Drizzle a little cheese sauce over the mixture. Top with another tortilla and repeat the process with 4 wraps in total finishing with a layer of bean mix and cheese sauce.

Bake the stack for 25 minutes at 200C. Slice into wedges to serve.

Note: You can use your own favourite strong cheese sauce recipe. My current favourite is taken from Oh She Glows and has a strong ’cheesy’ mustardy flavour giving a nice flavoursome kick to the tortilla stack.

The original recipe can be found here but I also provided my ever so slightly tweaked version below for reference. I increased the flour (I used cornflour) to 1.5 tbs to ensure a nice thick sauce.

Recipe: Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

¾ cup almond milk
6tbs nutritional yeast
1 tbs coconut oil
1 ½ tbs cornflour
2 tsp Dijon mustard
¼ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp salt and pepper

Method

Melt the coconut oil in a small pan over the hob. Whisk the flour and milk together in a separate bowl ensuring there are no lumps. Add the milk mixture plus all remaining ingredients to the pan and whisk well. Simmer and whisk for approx. 5 mins until thick.

Note: this sauce also freezes well so can be made in a batch.