Pumpkin Beer Chicken Chili with Butternut Squash and Kale

This Pumpkin Beer Chicken Chili with Butternut Squash and Kale is a healthy, hearty chili filled with lean ground chicken, black beans, butternut squash, kale, and your favorite pumpkin beer! It’s the perfect mix of your classic chili, and a veggie-forward autumn version! This will forever be one of my favorite meals to make during the chillier months.

Finally fall soups! This is the first chili of the season and I couldn’t be happier about it! I live for this season and the beautiful food that it brings. I know it’s not super classic to be putting butternut squash and kale into chili, but bear with me here! This is seriously one of my favorites, if not my favorite chili ever. It’s so hard to choose between all of them, this and this being other favorites, but I really love the addition of the squash and greens. It’s SO good and makes you feel slightly less bad about adding lots of sour cream, cheese, and eating an entire bag of tortilla chips with it..right?

I love making this on the weekend when there are games on (let’s be real, I don’t care about the games, only the food), because it’s just a fun tradition to have chili and watch football (in other words, eat allll the food). Right?

Don’t even get me started on gameday food.

So there’s no actual pumpkin in this, but I did put a bottle of pumpkin beer in this chili and it added such a great flavor. Just an undertone of that autumn beer flavor, but not overpowering at all. Just adds a little depth and richness!

I also have a crazy pumpkin beer post coming later this week telling you all about 12 popular pumpkin beers on the market! I taste tested and photographed all of them and it’s going to be such an amazing resource for you guys!

If you like pumpkin beer, that is! A bunch of the ones I tasted didn’t even have pumpkin flavor, but were still super delicious!

Cannot waiiiit to share it with you guys.

Even though there’s beer in here, it’s still super healthy. I used lean ground chicken, and stirred in some kale at the end. And I topped it with cheese, because who could ever eat a bowl of chili without cheese? And a little sour cream of course!

Make this for a lazy Sunday or your next get together. It’s so good and gets even better throughout the week!

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Pumpkin Beer Chicken Chili with Butternut Squash and Kale

This Pumpkin Beer Chicken Chili with Butternut Squash and Kale is a healthy, hearty chili filled with lean ground chicken, black beans, butternut squash, kale, and your favorite pumpkin beer! It's the perfect mix between your classic chili, and a veggie-forward autumn version! This will forever be one of my favorite meals to make during the chillier months.

Course Main, Soup

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Servings 4

Author Molly | Spices in My DNA

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 jalapeño, finely chopped
• 1 pound lean ground chicken
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 12 ounce bottle of your favorite pumpkin beer
• 1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 3 1/2 cups cubed butternut squash (1/2-3/4” chunks)
• 4-5 handfuls de-stemmed, chopped kale (about 1/2 of a bunch)
• sour cream for serving
• shredded cheddar for serving
• fresh cilantro for serving

Instructions

1. Heat a large pot over medium/high heat and add the olive oil. Once hot, add the onion, garlic, red bell pepper, and jalapeño and sauté for 5-6 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the ground chicken, chili powder, cumin, paprika, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper, and sauté for another 5 minutes, breaking up the chicken into small pieces.

2. Add the beer, bring to a boil, and cook for 3-4 minutes or until liquid has reduced. Add black beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, butternut squash, and chicken broth, and stir to combine. Bring to a boil.

3. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally, then simmer for another 10 minutes, uncovered. Once chili has simmered, add the kale, and stir until wilted into the chili. To serve, top with sour cream, shredded cheese, cilantro, chips, and whatever your favorite chili toppings are! This gets better and better throughout the week too!

This post was originally published on 10/7/14, but was updated with new photos and text on 10/1/18!