Best Vegetarian Chili Ever!

As I have mentioned on the blog before I have been slowly gravitating to a more vegetarian lifestyle. It's something I have been interested in for a long time and while I don't know that I will ever go 100% veg I am making an effort to eat less meat for ethical reasons. I recently discovered a wonderful meat substitute from Trader Joe's in the form of Soy Chorizo. Now I am not normally a fan of non meat items pretending to be meat but I love chorizo and when I heard about this soy version I knew I had to try it. Most of what I love about chorizo is the seasoning anyway so how bad could a soy version be?

Since I had a tiny bit of trepidation about using the soy chorizo for the first time I decided to use it in chili, you can't go wrong with chili. Well I have to say that the soy chorizo wildly surpassed my expectations and even though I totally invented this chili recipes Eric and I both agreed that it surpassed the meat chili we used to make. I quickly jotted down the ingredients as we ate so i wouldn't forget how to replicate this recipe. The soy crumbles in the chorizo replicate a finely ground beef which is how I like my chili meat and the spices were delicious. Plus the package of veggie chorizo from Trader Joe's is only $2! If you are looking for the perfect vegetarian chili recipe look no further!

Ingredients
1 package soy Chorizo
I onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, diced
2 ears of corn cut off the cob or equivalent amount of frozen corn
3 cups of cooked beans, I did a mixture of black, kidney and pinto beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
2 cups water, you can fiddle with this depending on how thick you like your chili
2 vegetable bullion cubes
2 tbs chili powder
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs smoked paprika
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tbs cayenne pepper

Remove the soy chorizo from it's casing and in a large Dutch Oven sauté with onions and garlic until the onions are tender. Add the corn and bell pepper and cook another few minutes to soften them up.
 Add the water and tomato paste and stir over medium heat. Add the bullion and other seasonings and stir in the cooked beans. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Served with tortilla chips, cheese and sour cream.