A few general chili notes: -bay leaves add a depth of flavor that tricks your mouth into thinking something has been cooking for much longer. I don’t consider them optional in any broth/soup/stew/etc. -Oregano (preferably Mexican) also adds a very typical chili flavor. Add it to the veg after the garlic is cooked -I’m not a fan of chocolate in chili, but I highly second the cinnamon. A pinch in taco seasoning is also amazing. The warmth compliments the other flavors and enhances the whole dish. -Chipotle in adobo is another amazing multi-purpose flavor component. Heat, smoke, acidity, and general depth of flavor on one tiny package. Definitely don’t skip it. -If you have a texture aversion to whole beans (like I do), make your chili a bit thinner than normal and stir in cans of refried beans towards the end of cooking. They can be hard to fully meld into the rest of the chili, so I do almost exactly what he did with the veggie base. Ladle out some of the liquid from the pot & mash/whisk the beans into it, then add the thickened bean/broth back into the whole pot. It gives flavor, nutrition, and richness. Just make sure to use vegetarian, because regular refried beans usually have animal fat.
This is genius! I hate it when people (especially vegans) just mindlessly recite the propaganda that eating vegan is expensive. Also, somebody gave me a bunch of cans of beans and tomatoes. I've never made chili, so I've been looking for a recipe. I think this video will send me in the right direction. So thanks!
Loving these tvp recipes lately! It's a pretty underrated vegan protein source where I'm from, since the recipes in the packages always instruct to boil it in plain water, making it all mushy and bland. If only people saw your videos on it
Also, Bob's brand of TVP is quite expensive. If you're trying to get TVP on a budget check out your local bulk bin store or Indian grocery store. It's substantially cheaper.
Recipe notwithstanding (looks utterly delicious, I wish I was a guest at yours for dinner!), the price comparison in this video is also really helpful, especially during the current economic squeeze. Thanks Vegan Burger Dude!
And to think, Vegan chili used to be with beans as the main protein! The TVP works beautifully along with beans and your recipe adds wonderful extra depth of flavor! Awesome !
i was in Ecuador for the whole month of October and shopping at the Mega grocery store there, $36 got me five full grocery bags of food. take your results and times them by 5 and that's how much chili you could make down there. i had your cookbook with me on that trip and i'm planning on going again in March. i'll bring it again and do a photo op in front of the City Display Sign the next time = )
That looks really good. I made some burritos with squash, canned lentils, corn, black olives, taco seasoning and the real kicker was the Chipotle in Adobo (which I blended into a sauce). Basically, you don't need a meat substitute to make good vegan alternatives. Just get creative with seasonings. I actually preferred it to when I use the gardein b'ef grounds.
Look awesome, Dude. Another good tip for anyone trying to perfect the thickness of their chili is to use Maseca. Me, personally, I love really thick chili.
I don’t like Walmart but when I’m budgeting Walmart is a better choice. Great chili recipe! Might have to try adding tvp to mine to see how my family likes it.
Love this! Kinda like the Cincinnati chili I grew up on. Also a big fan of batch cooking (I do tofu scramble on sheet trays, giant pots of lentil soup etc and save them for my partner's lunch so I only need to make lunch like once a month 😂) . Would absolutely love to see more of that type of large batch freezer meal prep vs what people usually do which is premade fridge lunch boxes.
I'm from West Virginia and I use a jar of Oliverio's peppers in sauce in my chili. It's a WV product, made from a family recipe & they come in sweet, mild & hot, so you can use them in just about anything! They're sold in most grocery stores in WV, Inc our Walmarts. I chop the pieces up a little before adding them to my pot after I've sautéed my onions & warmed my spices, but you could add them the last 15 minutes or so if you wanted to. I just like mine super soft & squishy. Lol 😋
YUM! I've been making very lazy chili lately. I'm making it in the microwave in one bowl servings. lol. It's just some cherry tomatoes, pickled jalapenos with some juice, mixed greens, drained can of black beans, chili powder, paprika, smoked paprika, chipotle chili powder, cayenne, lactic acid, nutritional yeast, and black pepper. It's quite tasty for how quick it is!
Looks lovely, but I‘m once again shocked at how expensive food can be in the US. I just returned to Germany from an internship in Boston and only now got used to „normal“ prices again. This brings me back to a year ago in Boston when I couldn‘t believe my eyes when I went grocery shopping for the first time! 😅
Looks delicious! Sadly I don't have TVP anywhere near me but lentils work perfectly fine for me. Definitely will be adding cinnamon and cocoa next time I make chili
If you have access to tofu, you can crumble it and bake it till dry which will have a similar texture. Or you can order it online along with soy curls which are comparable as well
I know I’m late to the party, but I love this video! I usually add Impossible to my chili, but will definitely try TVP to save on costs (would pulsed soy curls work the same? Cuz I have multiple bags of that). Oh, be a cool kid and eat chili with white rice. It’s 🔥
I need to hunt chipotle adobo to enhance my next chilli for sure! Thanks !! If we say that making vegan chilli is a privilege, definitely the ability to cook any meal is priviledge in itself - and it shouldn't be. Everyone should have access to food! Donate to your local food banks folks :)
My standard has been a cheap yummy staple for decades! Onions, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, canned kidney and chili beans, chili powder, extra ancho powder, garlic, cumin, oregano. Lime juice if I have it. Sometimes veggie burger crumbles but not needed. I like to eat it w/ oyster crackers also!
Hey Burger Dude! Just made this chili (1/2 recipe) exactly as written, and WoW, it’s perfect! Love the huge amount of spices, layer upon layer of taste. Thanks so much, love the video!!
Is fixed, thx! AND: got really hungry and craved for chili. Just made a really big pot of this fabulous recipe (and partial slightly different products, cause we dont have the same here in germany). It is absolutely fantastic. Thank you, Watson!!👍
Making this right now! We love you and we love your videos and excited to try the tofu ground beef which we are making fo the chilli right now. Thank you dude❤
Great video! Made it myself and i have to say, i think i will be eating less meat from now on because this one really hit the spot! Where im from i couldnt really find any tvp or these plant flakes, so i cooked it up with some couscous and it was amazing!
Woooooh, finally did the chilli recipe with TVP! Thank you! Also, for another burger video, why don't you try making burgers with TVP and oatmeal? I tweaked Chef Ani's sausage patty recipe and come to find out that these patties make good bouncy burgers like McDonald's.
@@TheeBurgerDude The link on your website works fine , maybe the link in the description has a slight error in the url. From what I can see the link in the description is " ...mac-n-cheese..", while on the website it is " ...mac-cheese..."
I just made my first ever vegan chili, combining ideas from your video with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's latest one. I used Beyond mince, and it was honestly the best chili I ever tasted, so thanks a bunch for the video, Dude!
If you don't do any research and get the flashy, green-washed vegan items, yeah, it's going to be expensive. I regularly make vegan chili and I can do about 10 servings for like $8. It's really easy lol Not only that, but if you have an instant pot you can make dry beans so quickly. I can do about 4 cups of chickpeas in 34 minutes at high pressure. Way easier than soaking overnight and then boiling for forever.
This is an unrelated questions but related to your wesite. How much of your homemade taco seasoning do you add to a recipe. Do you use it just like store bought seasoning :)
I discovered chili not too long ago, believe it or not and wow- did not really like it, haha. I'm not used to my beans with tomatoes and peppers and all of those rest of ingredients. I bought it canned, though- I'll give it another try homemade. :)
I don't think anyone does that? Considering the pot can be used for years and you're not just using it for this one recipe. That'd be like $70 divided by however many times you use it in its entire lifetime.
Hello!😊😊 my partner is a meat eater… and is convinced that all veggies and fruit are ‘disgusting’.. but if I blend them so he can’t feel the bits of the veg/fruit, he will eat it. Have you got links to videos I could make any food that is vegetables but blended so he can eat it without seeing the actual vegetable pieces.. I’ve tried blended tomatoes to make a pasta sauce and he liked it but id like some ideas for ‘junk food’ that’s healthy without any vegetable pieces he can feel.
Thanks for the recipe and videos! Quick question: written recipe says 8 cans of beans?!? Seems you are using 3 in the video… so what’s the correct qty?
That person must've been using beyond/impossible or somethin, and used a couple bags at that. And that amount of chilli could easily last me 2 weeks minimum
@Summer Joy they mean the original comment this video is based on. Who tf makes 36 dollar the chilli, at that point the issue is you and not veganism lol
Yeah, everything is more expensive in the US. I saw a UK haul for what would be about $24 US dollars and it was twice the amount of food you can get here. Granted, going to bulk / discount places will get your more than where I went. I'd like to do a video exploring that too.
From one Dude to another you REALLY need to open up a restaurant or even a food truck! All your recipes are wonderful and would kill on the street and they're so cheap it's almost instant profit. I would do it myself if it wouldn't be stealing all your recipes.
I make vegan chili every week. Can of beans, couple cups of vegetables, broth, spices i already have, it's no more than $3 per large pot which makes one full container worth of one of those big size chinese soup containers. It lasts for the work week since I use it as a condiment rather than a meal. I figure i eat half a cup per item i'm topping, or a full cup if eaten plain on top of rice. No beyond, impossible, no tvp, nothing like that. Replace all that fancy delicious but expensive faux meat with all *pulsed frozen vegetables* such as carrots, broccoli, cauliflour. You can't tell it's not 'meat' and it's a whole lot of hidden vegetables. If you process all that veg in a blender to the size of tvp, you don't need fake meat.
Hey Everyone! Let me know if you liked the format of this video! I'd like to do more budget, grocery haul style videos!
Your chili recipe link on your website has a broken link (page not found). It looks delicious though!
@@jennaley1628 thanks, yeah it's a bug working on a fix!
love the new format! definitely worth doing a lot more budget and batch-cooking style recipes in the current economy!
Check it again! Should be fixed.
I would definitely love to see more grocery haul type of videos! Also a related type: veggie pantry essentials/ cheap basics videos. Love your stuff!
A few general chili notes:
-bay leaves add a depth of flavor that tricks your mouth into thinking something has been cooking for much longer. I don’t consider them optional in any broth/soup/stew/etc.
-Oregano (preferably Mexican) also adds a very typical chili flavor. Add it to the veg after the garlic is cooked
-I’m not a fan of chocolate in chili, but I highly second the cinnamon. A pinch in taco seasoning is also amazing. The warmth compliments the other flavors and enhances the whole dish.
-Chipotle in adobo is another amazing multi-purpose flavor component. Heat, smoke, acidity, and general depth of flavor on one tiny package. Definitely don’t skip it.
-If you have a texture aversion to whole beans (like I do), make your chili a bit thinner than normal and stir in cans of refried beans towards the end of cooking. They can be hard to fully meld into the rest of the chili, so I do almost exactly what he did with the veggie base. Ladle out some of the liquid from the pot & mash/whisk the beans into it, then add the thickened bean/broth back into the whole pot. It gives flavor, nutrition, and richness. Just make sure to use vegetarian, because regular refried beans usually have animal fat.
I didn't know there were variations of Oregano. I have got to look into this. Thank you.
This is genius! I hate it when people (especially vegans) just mindlessly recite the propaganda that eating vegan is expensive. Also, somebody gave me a bunch of cans of beans and tomatoes. I've never made chili, so I've been looking for a recipe. I think this video will send me in the right direction. So thanks!
Any time someone says that cooking vegan food is expensive, I just get confused.
Loving these tvp recipes lately! It's a pretty underrated vegan protein source where I'm from, since the recipes in the packages always instruct to boil it in plain water, making it all mushy and bland. If only people saw your videos on it
Also, Bob's brand of TVP is quite expensive. If you're trying to get TVP on a budget check out your local bulk bin store or Indian grocery store. It's substantially cheaper.
I've been looking for a good chili recipe, and I trust you more than others. Thank you!
Recipe notwithstanding (looks utterly delicious, I wish I was a guest at yours for dinner!), the price comparison in this video is also really helpful, especially during the current economic squeeze. Thanks Vegan Burger Dude!
And to think, Vegan chili used to be with beans as the main protein! The TVP works beautifully along with beans and your recipe adds wonderful extra depth of flavor! Awesome !
i was in Ecuador for the whole month of October and shopping at the Mega grocery store there, $36 got me five full grocery bags of food. take your results and times them by 5 and that's how much chili you could make down there.
i had your cookbook with me on that trip and i'm planning on going again in March. i'll bring it again and do a photo op in front of the City Display Sign the next time = )
That would be awesome!
This was an amazing video! I love this format. Anything to show how accessible vegan food can be!
That looks really good. I made some burritos with squash, canned lentils, corn, black olives, taco seasoning and the real kicker was the Chipotle in Adobo (which I blended into a sauce). Basically, you don't need a meat substitute to make good vegan alternatives. Just get creative with seasonings. I actually preferred it to when I use the gardein b'ef grounds.
Look awesome, Dude. Another good tip for anyone trying to perfect the thickness of their chili is to use Maseca. Me, personally, I love really thick chili.
Yes Masa Harina or refried beans work great! I should've mentioned that!
If I'm adding canned beans to my pot of chili, I use a can of black, a can of red and a can of pinto beans. I'm trying this recipe soon!
I don’t like Walmart but when I’m budgeting Walmart is a better choice. Great chili recipe! Might have to try adding tvp to mine to see how my family likes it.
Love this! Kinda like the Cincinnati chili I grew up on. Also a big fan of batch cooking (I do tofu scramble on sheet trays, giant pots of lentil soup etc and save them for my partner's lunch so I only need to make lunch like once a month 😂) . Would absolutely love to see more of that type of large batch freezer meal prep vs what people usually do which is premade fridge lunch boxes.
i love the lore knew exactly what this video was about when i saw it ahaha
I made this and it was really delicious! Thanks for the easy recipes!
Excellent!! Thank you!
I'm from West Virginia and I use a jar of Oliverio's peppers in sauce in my chili. It's a WV product, made from a family recipe & they come in sweet, mild & hot, so you can use them in just about anything! They're sold in most grocery stores in WV, Inc our Walmarts. I chop the pieces up a little before adding them to my pot after I've sautéed my onions & warmed my spices, but you could add them the last 15 minutes or so if you wanted to. I just like mine super soft & squishy. Lol 😋
you're always a lifesaver!
YUM! I've been making very lazy chili lately. I'm making it in the microwave in one bowl servings. lol. It's just some cherry tomatoes, pickled jalapenos with some juice, mixed greens, drained can of black beans, chili powder, paprika, smoked paprika, chipotle chili powder, cayenne, lactic acid, nutritional yeast, and black pepper. It's quite tasty for how quick it is!
I love cinnamon in chili! I'm also a fan of Cincinnati Chili. This looks great!
As a cincinnati native that's the only way to eat it ;)
Looks lovely, but I‘m once again shocked at how expensive food can be in the US.
I just returned to Germany from an internship in Boston and only now got used to „normal“ prices again. This brings me back to a year ago in Boston when I couldn‘t believe my eyes when I went grocery shopping for the first time! 😅
Looks delicious! Sadly I don't have TVP anywhere near me but lentils work perfectly fine for me. Definitely will be adding cinnamon and cocoa next time I make chili
If you have access to tofu, you can crumble it and bake it till dry which will have a similar texture. Or you can order it online along with soy curls which are comparable as well
I just boughtthe book on amazon and i am going to eat for a week strictly from the book!! Cant wait to update!!
Hope you enjoy!!
I know I’m late to the party, but I love this video! I usually add Impossible to my chili, but will definitely try TVP to save on costs (would pulsed soy curls work the same? Cuz I have multiple bags of that).
Oh, be a cool kid and eat chili with white rice. It’s 🔥
I add spicy salsa to my chili, it's a game changer in my opinion!
Definitely like this format. All your work is awesome.
i cannot wait to try this when I am done with my finals!
I've been putting cinnamon in my taco meat and stir fry for a while, it really makes the dish something special
I need to hunt chipotle adobo to enhance my next chilli for sure! Thanks !!
If we say that making vegan chilli is a privilege, definitely the ability to cook any meal is priviledge in itself - and it shouldn't be. Everyone should have access to food! Donate to your local food banks folks :)
Absolutely! I donate to the local food bank all the time!
@@TheeBurgerDude here we have fridges where you can leave food near supermarkets too!
My standard has been a cheap yummy staple for decades! Onions, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, canned kidney and chili beans, chili powder, extra ancho powder, garlic, cumin, oregano. Lime juice if I have it. Sometimes veggie burger crumbles but not needed. I like to eat it w/ oyster crackers also!
I definitely liked this format a lot! Good to have a previous idea about how much the ingredients cost. So thank you a huge lot! Nice recipe :D
Hey Burger Dude! Just made this chili (1/2 recipe) exactly as written, and WoW, it’s perfect! Love the huge amount of spices, layer upon layer of taste. Thanks so much, love the video!!
Heck yeah, glad you liked it! I still have some in the freezer I need to defrost thanks for reminding me!
Lol, enjoy!
Love the new blog!!
you make me smile, thank you
This is amazing! Thanks for the recipe!
Looks amazing!! Thx.
By the way: the link to the recipe seems to be broken. From the teaser of your marvelous website as well
Cheers
Dangit, thanks! New website, we must have some bugs to fix, try again soon!
Check it again! Should be fixed.
Is fixed, thx! AND: got really hungry and craved for chili. Just made a really big pot of this fabulous recipe (and partial slightly different products, cause we dont have the same here in germany). It is absolutely fantastic. Thank you, Watson!!👍
This has inspired me! Order the ingredients right now. Thanks man 🙌
Making this right now! We love you and we love your videos and excited to try the tofu ground beef which we are making fo the chilli right now. Thank you dude❤
I have to make this this weekend!
Great video! Made it myself and i have to say, i think i will be eating less meat from now on because this one really hit the spot! Where im from i couldnt really find any tvp or these plant flakes, so i cooked it up with some couscous and it was amazing!
Woooooh, finally did the chilli recipe with TVP! Thank you!
Also, for another burger video, why don't you try making burgers with TVP and oatmeal? I tweaked Chef Ani's sausage patty recipe and come to find out that these patties make good bouncy burgers like McDonald's.
I have a TVP burger recipe from a couple weeks ago!
Just an update - I made chili this weekend with TVP as you demonstrated - it rocks!!! Thank you so much for the tip!! 😊👍
Excellent!
Nice recipe, also wanted to let you know that the link for the mac and cheese in the previous video in the description doesn't work.
Dangit, thanks for the note, I'll forward it to my website person!
@@TheeBurgerDude The link on your website works fine , maybe the link in the description has a slight error in the url. From what I can see the link in the description is " ...mac-n-cheese..", while on the website it is " ...mac-cheese..."
I think I fixed it, check it out again! Thanks!
@@TheeBurgerDude Yes it's fixed! :)
I just finished making this recipe and WOW! It was the best vegan chili recipe I've tried. Thank you!
Heck yes! So glad you dug it!
@@TheeBurgerDude how long does this take to make?
Thank you💜🙋🏾♀️👍🏾
I just made my first ever vegan chili, combining ideas from your video with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's latest one. I used Beyond mince, and it was honestly the best chili I ever tasted, so thanks a bunch for the video, Dude!
Nice work!!!!
Looks amazing!
Hey my beautiful friend. Look for La Fiesta spices brand of TVP they make it and I buy tons of it from my local GO for like 2 bucks for 8oz
This looks really good... Thank you 🥰
You know I’m gonna have to make this!
3 years being vegan and i've never made chili before jajajajja gonna try this tonight!!!!! so excited:-))
That looks so good!
If you don't do any research and get the flashy, green-washed vegan items, yeah, it's going to be expensive.
I regularly make vegan chili and I can do about 10 servings for like $8. It's really easy lol
Not only that, but if you have an instant pot you can make dry beans so quickly. I can do about 4 cups of chickpeas in 34 minutes at high pressure. Way easier than soaking overnight and then boiling for forever.
Looks lovely and rich. I'm trying the cocoa powder next time if I remember.
Sounds amazing
This is an unrelated questions but related to your wesite. How much of your homemade taco seasoning do you add to a recipe. Do you use it just like store bought seasoning :)
Yep, just to taste is good.
Great video! I love the editing
great value chili beans 🫶 a staple for my chili
I discovered chili not too long ago, believe it or not and wow- did not really like it, haha. I'm not used to my beans with tomatoes and peppers and all of those rest of ingredients. I bought it canned, though- I'll give it another try homemade. :)
Premade canned chili is GARBAGE! Homemade is 1000000 times better! Give this one a try!
@@TheeBurgerDude Oh, I already saved your video. And sure will, thanks!.❤
I agree with Mr. Dude, canned chili and fresh chili are two different things! Hope you enjoy the homemade one!
@@lairdriin8513 I'm sure it will taste totally different. Thanks!
Awesome!!!
Now I wanna try vegan chili with tvp! 😊👍
Thanks!
thanks for this. i too use tvp chili.
I live in a very non-vegan-friendly small town. Chili cook off next Month. Think this would be a good recipe to enter??
You forgot to factor in the cost of your pot lol. But, I am definitely trying cocoa powder and cinnamon in my next chili!
I don't think anyone does that?
Considering the pot can be used for years and you're not just using it for this one recipe. That'd be like $70 divided by however many times you use it in its entire lifetime.
@@HannahIrene719 Oh for sure! I'm just joking about the $36 chili tweet
love if you’d be able to include some low FODMAP versions in a future video!
This is very similar to my own chili. But I do add soaked bulgar to have some chew to the chili.
Hello!😊😊 my partner is a meat eater… and is convinced that all veggies and fruit are ‘disgusting’.. but if I blend them so he can’t feel the bits of the veg/fruit, he will eat it.
Have you got links to videos I could make any food that is vegetables but blended so he can eat it without seeing the actual vegetable pieces.. I’ve tried blended tomatoes to make a pasta sauce and he liked it but id like some ideas for ‘junk food’ that’s healthy without any vegetable pieces he can feel.
Love!!!!
My dad was a meat and potatoes guy. I did an experiment and made chili with tofu. He didn't know the difference!
That sounds like a good price to me!
Me watching a random video -- hey, those are pictures of all my supermarkets in Burbank!
everything's free amen! GESARA!!! Replicators! GESARA! FREE!!
My guy! Now I want chili😑
Thanks for the recipe and videos! Quick question: written recipe says 8 cans of beans?!? Seems you are using 3 in the video… so what’s the correct qty?
I’m using larger cans that are less common, so use about 8 pounds of canned beans. I used 3 (2.5 pound) cans.
Imagine thinking cooking is a privilege
I mean it is, some people don't have access to a kitchen, grocery stores or the time / ability to cook.
$36? That guy didn't even TRY to keep the cost down.
That person must've been using beyond/impossible or somethin, and used a couple bags at that. And that amount of chilli could easily last me 2 weeks minimum
Given that it makes about 30 servings of chili it's actually quite reasonable.
@Summer Joy they mean the original comment this video is based on. Who tf makes 36 dollar the chilli, at that point the issue is you and not veganism lol
😱 What are the prices ?!
Tasks knife on the bottom of a ceramic mug, bowl.
This looks like it would be great to take to a potluck!
Thanks for making this, people always used that stupid argument that you showed in the beginning
Jeez. TVP at nearly $5 for 340g. In the Uk, I get TVP mince from a local Turkish market for 79p (about $1) for 300g.
Woah! 1 onion for a dollar. We get a kilo for 50p.
Yeah, everything is more expensive in the US. I saw a UK haul for what would be about $24 US dollars and it was twice the amount of food you can get here. Granted, going to bulk / discount places will get your more than where I went. I'd like to do a video exploring that too.
@@TheeBurgerDude I’m shocked. I always assumed food would be cheaper in the US.
Even more expense in Canada.
Delicious Chili sin carne
Wow I only pay $3.50 for that bouillon here in Jersey at Walmart
From one Dude to another you REALLY need to open up a restaurant or even a food truck! All your recipes are wonderful and would kill on the street and they're so cheap it's almost instant profit.
I would do it myself if it wouldn't be stealing all your recipes.
What's a good vegan sour cream brand?
I love this vegan inside joke. I definitely wanna buy tvp now
Wow looks delicious man i like this recipe i want try make this anyday You win a like
I've never liked chili but this video makes me want to try it again LOL
Instead of impossible meat can you use tofu?
Think there is an issue with the recipe link. Says not available
Yes, thank you we are working on it!
Check it again! Should be fixed.
@@TheeBurgerDude thank you!
Ok but how much did you spend on gas?
U ever heard if food not bombs? (found out about it three days ago so I'm not an expert lol)
Oh yes!
Serve with rice to make even cheaper
WONDERFUL!!!! 😍😋👍💕
America really is inexpensive, you're so lucky.
In Germany, this whole pot would be like 50$ at least...
Need 2try
Now I really vegan chili cheez fries
Great video, the link to the recipe doesn't work. Could you fix it?
Working on it!
Check it again! Should be fixed.
@@TheeBurgerDude great thank you!
I make vegan chili every week. Can of beans, couple cups of vegetables, broth, spices i already have, it's no more than $3 per large pot which makes one full container worth of one of those big size chinese soup containers. It lasts for the work week since I use it as a condiment rather than a meal. I figure i eat half a cup per item i'm topping, or a full cup if eaten plain on top of rice. No beyond, impossible, no tvp, nothing like that. Replace all that fancy delicious but expensive faux meat with all *pulsed frozen vegetables* such as carrots, broccoli, cauliflour. You can't tell it's not 'meat' and it's a whole lot of hidden vegetables. If you process all that veg in a blender to the size of tvp, you don't need fake meat.