Sweet Potato Chili Recipe

Sweet potato chili in the Instant Pot with black benas is a quick nutritious stew for dinner. With diced up baked sweet potatoes cooked to tender, this is a fast way to make this popular dish.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili

We add meat into the mix because it makes it a bit heartier but would be just as good meatless. It doesn’t matter whether you use a Crockpot Express, Mealthy or as a Ninja Foodi recipe. As long as you have the high pressure function it will work.

I just used our Instant Pot chili as our base and then tweaked it to include this tender veggie. Used poultry instead of beef because I thought the flavors would allow for it and it came out nicely. You could quite easily make this spicy with red pepper flakes or chili powder if you wanted to.

If you have made our Instant Pot sweet potato cubes before you know how easily you can get them tender under pressure. Boiling is not the answer when it comes to this. That leaches out not only a lot of the vitamins inside but it also takes away a lot of the wonderful flavor. Cooking it in a sauce is the answer.

You’ll want to start by prepping all of your ingredients. You never want to consume the skin of a sweet potato as it is inedible vs. russets. Meat should be diced into bite size pieces so it cooks at the same rate and it’s easier to scoop up with a spoon.

From there follow the rest of the instructions below and use about 2 cups drained. Here are the rest of the ingredients necessary;

Ingredient Notes

• 1 onion diced are optional, same as bell pepper diced
• Sweet potatoes skins removed, chopped into cubes. You could even make this as a purple sweet potato recipe for a different color!
• Black beans canned and drained + rinsed. Not a fan of black beans? NO problem, just change to kidney or white instead. If you wanted to cook absolutely from scratch you could first follow our pressure cooker black beans instructions to get them from dry to tender.
• 1 lb chicken skinless, boneless, cut into small chunks are optional
• Minced garlic for flavor we love in all recipes in our house, use jarred or diced fine from fresh
• Chili powder will add a bit of spicy heat but you could use red pepper flakes or Sriracha for an Asian flare too
• Chicken broth or stock works, any liquid really but think about the overall flavor of the dish you want when choosing.
• 1 can diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes, 14 oz can will add even more vegetables into the mix and increase the liquid a bit for the soup like texture
• 1/4 tsp tomato paste allows the sauce to thicken with a deeper tomato flavor

Variations

As far as liquid you could use more or less depending on how thick you wanted it to be. Keep in mind this will take about 30 minutes to come to pressure, cook, and release the pressure. In that time you can meal prep your sides or dessert.

Without Beans

So if you’re a Texan or just anti bean for some reason you could leave those out. I will say that they do offer more fiber, protein, taste and texture to the dish but yes, optional. Instead you could add more veggies or else there will be a lot more liquid.

Vegetarian

Want to make meatless sweet potato chili instead? NO problem, just leave out the chicken and use vegetable broth instead. You could use beer for a bit of the liquid with broth for the remainder too, just sayin’. 😉

You can enjoy as is or if you wanted to add something to the top some shredded cheese or feta is a good choice to try out. We sometimes pour this on top of some fluffy Ninja Foodi rice.

Heat should be adjusted as you wish. If you have some that want it mild and only a few who want it hot then I would just serve and add jalapenos or red pepper flakes to the remaining batch. Below is mild/medium level.

This is great made as turkey chili too. Just swap out the meat to this and saute just a bit at the beginning. Use a tbsp of olive oil since it’s so low in fat. You don’t need to completely cook it but sauteed just until the outside is no longer pink should do it. It will cook more with the other ingredients beyond that.

Want to try another version similar to this in your Crock pot too? We love our slow cooker venison chili as well, especially if you have a hunter in the house and can get fresh meat. Want to try a third version on your stovetop? Try bloody mary chili! I know, sounds interesting right? And super yummy.

More sweet potato recipes

If you want to get more of these into your diet I have a few other ideas. Of course you can bake these whole and fill with savory or sweet toppings but bite sized is kinda’ more fun. You can get more of a crisp on the edges this way too if you make something like air fryer sweet potato cubes. Sweet potato cubes oven baked work the same way.

If you want to make Instant Pot mashed sweet potatoes it is easier to prep them this way beforehand. Then when nice and tender you can just mash as you normally would with a bit of milk, cinnamon and sugar + all the things. It is a nice tweak to regular white versions that typically fall apart whereas this version has a bit more texture.

How to Save Leftover Chili

Have leftovers? This chili really saves quite well. If you wait until it is totally cooled before spooning into a bowl with plastic wrap on top you can save it for up to 3 days. Then transfer into a microwave safe dish and heat in 30 second increments stirring in between until it’s as hot as you want. Then enjoy for a second meal!