Turkey Chili with Butternut Squash

It's a little difficult to believe, but it's been more than two years since I first made this turkey chili. At the end of 2016, I threw a pre-holiday dinner party for a bunch of friends using Modern Potluck as the recipe source and Marie-Eve as my fearless cooking companion. Everything we made from Modern Potluck that day was delicious, and I've posted two of the recipes we made (the polenta casserole and the Chinese chicken salad), but I've kept tweaking this recipe and so it's only now appearing as a proper post.

I've dropped both varieties of beans, roasted the butternut squash together with the alliums then blended them together into a puree, varied the dried chiles added, doubled the spices, prefer brown beer to pumpkin ale, lengthened the cooking time for proper reduction, discovered applesauce works as an apple cider replacement but reduced honeycrisp apple juice is even better, and finally, added chopped kale or baby spinach or spiralized zucchini at the end for some extra veg. These were controlled experiments.... I've made this turkey chili a lot over the past two years. The first time around it was pretty good but not sufficiently "chili" flavored (according to multiple people). I don't want to claim this latest version as "the BEST turkey chili ever", but we like it a lot, and it makes for a warm and filling healthy spin on chili.

Heavily adapted from  Modern Potluck

Turkey Chili with Butternut Squash

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Course: Main

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Healthy meals

Prep Time: 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 3 hours hours

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 4 whole dried pasilla chiles
• 4 whole dried guajilla* chiles
• 1 large onion chopped into eighths
• 5 garlic cloves ends trimmed but skin on
• 1 pound peeled butternut squash cut into even cubes (from one large squash or two medium-sized)
• 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 5-6 grinds freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• ½ tablespoon olive oil
• 2 pounds ground turkey preferably no higher than 93% lean
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ¼ cup tomato paste or 8 ounces tomato puree
• 3 teaspoons cumin more if you love cumin
• 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
• 24 ounces (2 bottles) brown ale or pumpkin beer
• ½ cup apple cider or applesauce or reduced apple juice

Instructions

• In a dry medium-sized skillet, toast the dried chiles over medium heat until warm and fragrant, turning occasionally, for about 2 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and let cool.
  
• Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 F and line a roasting pan with parchment paper. Prepare the butternut squash (peel, deseed, and cube the raw squash) and place the cubes on the prepared tray. Chop the onion into eighths, trim the ends off the garlic cloves, and place on the tray with the squash. Drizzle everything with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and a little cracked pepper, than roast until softened, rotating the pan and flipping the vegetables over halfway through, for about 30-50 minutes total. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skin and discard the skins.
  
• While the squash and alliums roast, soak the toasted chiles. Using gloves if you're heat-sensitive, rip off the stems and carefully dump out the seeds. Put the deseeded chiles in a medium saucepan, pour the chicken broth over top, then bring to a boil over high heat. Remove the pan from the heat and let the chiles stand in the liquid until very soft, about 30 minutes.
  
• Once the squash is roasted and the chiles are softened, work in batches to transfer the squash, onions, garlic, chiles, and chicken broth to a blender and puree until smooth.
  
• Heat a large, heavy-bottoms soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil to the pot, then the ground turkey meat and the ½ teaspoon salt and cook the ground turkey, breaking it up into bite-sized chunks, until it turns opaque throughout and starts to brown in a few spots. Add the tomato paste and cumin, stir in, and continue cooking until the cumin is fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Add the cocoa powder and brown ale, stir well, and bring to a boil. Add the chile-squash puree and apple cider, bring back to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer until the chili thickens and is very flavorful.
• This chili is good immediately, however, it's actually best the day(s) after it is made so the flavors really have time to settle. Stir in baby spinach or spiralized zucchini to wilt and serve, with avocado chunks, cheese, chopped cilantro, chips, and any other accompaniments you want on the side.
  
• Once made, this chili will keep in the refrigerator for about 4 days or in the freezer for 1-2 months.
  

Notes

*you could use 2 dried serrano, 2 dried aji amarillo and ½ a dried habanero in place of the less hot chile peppers if you prefer a hotter chili.

Alternatively, you could roast fresh peppers together with the squash, onions, and garlic. I've used 2 fresh pasilla plus 2 red "hot" peppers in place of the dry (just remove the tops and deseed them before pureeing).