Zesty Wheat Berry Black Bean Chili

I’ve been transitioning to a vegetarian diet over the past few months and have discovered that most food storage recipes are fabulous for this new way of eating. I love that I can try new recipes and know that they fit in with the way I want to eat right now, as well as are full of ingredients that I have in my long term food storage. I made this Zesty Wheat Berry Black Bean Chili using my Instant Pot and it turned out amazing, wasn’t too time consuming and is fairly inexpensive with all the food storage substitutions I made! Win-win-win.

Ingredients:

2 T. olive oil
1/2 c. freeze-dried chopped onions
1/2 c. freeze-dried red bell peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 c. instant black beans
2 14-ounce cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 c.freeze-dried green chili peppers
2 c. vegetable broth
2 tsp. brown sugar
2 cups cooked wheat berries (about 1 cup dry)
Juice of 1 lime
1 avocado, diced
1/4 cup freeze-dried cilantro

Directions:

1. Cook wheat berries in your Instant Pot for quickest prepping. Stovetop will work fine too. The recipe requires two cups of cooked berries so you would need about 1 cup of dry wheat to get that. I did a little extra just to make sure I had enough.

2. Heat oil in a large pot. Add onion and bell pepper and heat just until slightly browned. Stir in garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper and let cook for about 1 minute.

3. Add instant beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, vegetable broth and brown sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.

4. Stir in cooked wheat berries and heat through, about 5 minutes more. Remove from the heat.

5. Stir in lime juice. Garnish each bowl with avocado and cilantro.

6. EAT!