This easy Vegan Chili Mac comes together in just 30 minutes for a satisfying weeknight meal!
Meet one of our new favorite go-to dinners – Vegan Chili Mac! We all love it, including our toddler who gets super excited and usually asks for seconds. Although she has trouble pronouncing “chili” so it comes out more like “gooey mac” 😉
I love this recipe because it’s amazing comfort food with 8 simple ingredients yet tons of flavor. It’s both healthy and filling. Plus slightly creamy & cheesy from the nutritional yeast. It’s not spicy when using a mild chili powder, so add smoky chipotle powder if you’d like to kick it up. It’s a perfect family-friendly meal loved by kids and adults alike. Gooey mac for the win!
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Vegan Chili Mac
Ingredients
- 8 oz. elbow pasta (about 2 heaping cups uncooked)
- 1 onion
- 15 oz. can tomato sauce
- 15 oz. can kidney beans (rinsed and drained)
- 1 1/2 cups corn (I use frozen)
- 3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast (I use this brand)
- 3-4 tsp. mild chili powder*
- 1/2 cup water
- 3-4 oz. spinach
- Salt to taste
- Optional: garlic, chipotle powder
Instructions
- Cook pasta, leaving al dente. Drain when finished.
- While pasta is cooking, dice onion.
- In a large pan over medium heat, saute onion about 8 minutes or until translucent.
- When onion is soft, add pasta and all other ingredients except spinach.
- Reduce heat and cook 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more water if it becomes too dry.
- Meanwhile, roughly chop spinach.
- Add spinach and cook 3 minutes. Salt to taste.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving (estimate)
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Winter has really hit, and I've been craving warming dishes like this. It looks so good, and I love the vibrant color of the spinach.
Thanks so much Cadry! Always fun to add some pretty color 🙂
I made this for dinner tonight and it was great…comforting, but not too heavy…definitely worthy of a repeat…even the omnivore hubby had seconds
Hi Terri! Yay – wonderful to hear! So glad you (and the hubby!!) enjoyed it 🙂 One of our faves!
Mmmm! Delicious. I've been vegan about 6 months now and this is real comfort food! It's a good thing I love it because I made a whole batch and it's just me. Sounds good for breakfast tomorrow 🙂
Hi Kim! Haha – awesome 🙂 So glad you're enjoying it! I eat leftovers for breakfast all the time and this is definitely no exception 😉 Have a great week!
Thank you the recipe. I made your recipe two weeks ago and we loved it. I made it again today with a few additions/modifications; I used 2oz of spinach and 2 oz of collard greens. I added a birds-eye chili pepper, an orange bell pepper, and a pasilla pepper. Then I added a cajun spice blend. I suppose I had a craving for the spices today. All peppers are deseeded.
NICE! I love your additions – I bet that added tons of awesome flavor. It's such a great recipe to play around with! Thanks for the message!
hi Kaitlin was wondering if it still works with frozen spinach as that's all I have right now thankyou
Hey Christine!! I've never tried it with frozen spinach but I bet that'd work great! Hope you enjoy it and wishing you a very happy new year! 🙂
How much does this make ? Family of 6 here! 🙂
Hi Sari! If you have younger kiddos, I bet you could stretch this one batch to feed all 6. Otherwise you may want to double it (or estimate a batch and a half). If you double it, you'll most likely have leftovers, but we love 'em heated up the next day! 🙂 Hope you guys enjoy!
I'm excited to be making this recipe tomorrow for dinner:) Can share the nutrition facts per serving, calories, fat, protein, etx.? Thanks Kaitlin!
Hi! Sorry this is a little late but hope you loved it the other night! <3 I don't provide nutritional stats here on the site, but if you'd like to calculate your own you can try this website:
http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
I've heard it's pretty straightforward and easy to use. Hope that helps! 🙂
Update: I know this is an old comment, but just wanted to let you know that the estimated nutritional content is now provided! (You can find it below the recipe in the post.) Hope that helps!
Definitely going to try this. Plan on substituting white miso for the yeast. I hate the taste of the yeast but someone recently said it’s the fortified nutritional yeast we don’t like so look for non fortified. Anyone know of a brand that is non fortified?
Hi Sheila! Excellent idea subbing in miso, I love that! It always adds such depth and great flavor 🙂 For non-fortified nutritional yeast, the brand “Sari Foods” makes one that I hear great things about (but I haven’t personally tried it yet). Wishing you luck in finding one you enjoy! Have a lovely week! -Kaitlin