Beans For Chilli

Our answer

Nigella's Cornbread Topped Chilli Con Carne (from FEAST) has a rich beef chilli base that sits underneath a crust of cornbread. The chilli contains two cans of drained kidney beans and if you can't eat kidney beans but can eat other beans then canned black beans go very well in chilli and would be a good alternative. You could also use canned adzuki beans, but add them only for the last 30 minutes of cooking as these beans are smaller and will soften quickly.

If you can't eat beans at all then we would suggest using extra red (bell/sweet) peppers. The recipe already uses two but without beans you would need to increase this to about 8-10 peppers. You may need to use a little extra olive oil when frying the vegetables (at step 2) and you may also find, without the extra bulk provided by the beans, that the chilli may not serve quite as many people.