Pellet Smoker Cooking: White Chicken Chili

Dec 12 2013

Friday I bought a whole chicken to smoke for some soup. I wanted to try some white chicken chili. I have fixed several different recipes but none impressed me. Some recipes don’t even have chili powder in them; I don’t see how you can say it’s chili without chili powder!

I found a recipe at foodnetwork.com by the Neely’s that sounded good. It had chilies, and chili powder in it, and the adding of the juice of two limes sounded good.

I spatchcocked the chicken and did it on my smoker Friday. I do them this way anytime I want chicken to add to soup. I usually add a pat of butter up under the breast skin to help keep the meat moist. Since the recipe had lime juice in it I added a slice of lime this time. I did the chicken at 300 deg. until an IT of 170 deg. breast temp. I made a snack of the skin nuked until crispy for myself and pulled all the meat off the bones for my soup on Saturday. Friday I cooked inside and had pork cutlets fried then in the oven to keep while I fried cabbage in the same skillet and fried some potatoes. Pork, fried cabbage and fried potatoes make a fine meal.

Friday night I mixed up a batch of my Smoked Korean crackers to smoke Sat. and have with the soup.

Early Saturday I made some cornbread, in a cast iron skillet in the oven. I have done cornbread on the smoker but you don’t really get any smoke flavor. After lunch I smoked the crackers 175 deg. for an hour and a half. I charred the two Anaheim peppers on my gas grill to peel the skin and add to the soup.

I made a few changes in the ingredients and changed the cooking process. I cut back on the cumin to a teaspoon, a heaping teaspoon of Ancho chili pepper, and I added a teaspoon of smoked paprika. I omitted the jalapeno and added some chopped green bell pepper instead. I cut back on the cilantro too since we are not crazy about it.

I sautéed the onions, peppers and garlic in some olive oil until all were soft. I diced up the chicken so it was all kind of uniform size, added that to the skillet and heated through. I then added the spices and seasoning and stirred to coat the chicken and heat through. All this went into my Aroma cooker to slow cook. I added the chicken broth, cannellini beans, and the lime juice. This was about 3:00 so would be done by 6:00 for our supper. At 5:00 I added the cilantro and it looked like too much broth and not enough beans for me. I found a can of navy beans so I rinsed them and added; now it looked better!

My wife and I had the chili, topped with crushed taco chips and sour cream on top. She had some cornbread with hers and I had cornbread and smoked crackers with mine. We both liked it, she doesn’t usually like soup with beans except for regular chili; but she liked this. My daughter in law and grandson had some Sunday evening and both liked it. For me it was the best white chicken chili I have had!

Link to Neely's Recipe

Soup Ingredients