Spicy Veggie Chili and Southwest Chicken Cheese Wraps

About

If you want a hot meal, eat this Keto vegetable chili with Southwest chicken filling in special Keto cheese wraps. The chili is made with mushrooms, zucchini, peppers, and crumbled tofu. The chunky ingredients soak up the flavorful thickened broth made with Keto fats. The Southwest chicken cheese wraps are made with chili-seasoned chicken breasts, cream cheese, diced vegetables, and green onion. The filling is wrapped in baked sliced of pepper jack cheese for a zero-carb solution. If you need something to cool down your chili, chill the cheese wraps in your refrigerator. Then, you can swirl or dip the wraps in your chili to cool it down and add an extra bite of flavor to the wraps. If you want to use this recipe for meal prepping, keep the chili in its own separate container in your refrigerator until it’s time to re-heat for eating. Again, the cheese wraps can be microwaved for a hot meal or kept cold.

Can I Make The Whole Meal Vegetarian?

Since the chili is vegetarian, you may be interested in making the full recipe a Keto vegetarian recipe! The only non-vegetarian ingredient here is the chicken used in the cheese wrap. If you are a Carb Manager Premium user, you can edit this recipe to omit the chicken and record the correct macros. Since the chicken makes up a significant portion of the Southwest filling, you may wish to substitute the chicken with one of the recommendations made below.

Chicken Substitutions

To make this recipe a Keto vegetarian meal, you’ll need to substitute the chicken in the Southwest filling with a different ingredient. Replacements can include extra chopped Keto vegetables or toasted chopped nuts. Cashews, peanuts, or walnuts are all Keto-friendly. You may also make a meat-like substitute using additional tofu seasoned in your preferred style. Marinate the tofu and cook it before using it in your filling.

Ingredients

6 oz zucchini
6 oz brown mushrooms (italian or crimini mushrooms), raw, high in vitamin d
3 ¾ oz green bell pepper
1 ½ tablespoon olive or extra virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
⅛ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¾ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon cumin, ground
1 ½ oz cream cheese
1 tablespoon cream heavy whipping
1 ¼ cup vegetable broth, bouillon or consomme
6 oz tofu
4 oz chicken breast boneless skinless raw
¼ teaspoon olive or extra virgin olive oil
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 oz celery
1 oz red onion
2 tsp, chopped scallions
3 oz cream cheese
⅛ cup, shredded cheddar cheese, natural
6 slice (from pre-sliced package) – each 3/4 ounce pepper jack cheese

Instructions

Prepare the chili by chopping zucchini into small pieces, slicing mushrooms, and dicing bell pepper. Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot on medium-low heat. Add the chopped veggies to the oil and season with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and cumin. Stir the ingredients together, cover the pot with a lid, and stew down for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables have shrunk, released excess liquid, and the liquid has reduced. Stir the pot and lower the heat as needed to avoid burning.
Once the vegetables are cooked down, reduce your stove heat to low. Stir cream cheese and heavy cream into the pot until all the cream cheese melted into a lump-free spread. Fold the vegetables over so they’re coated in the thickened cream, then pour the broth into the pot. Cover the pot again, and turn the heat up until the pot is simmering.
While the chili is simmering, pat the correct amount of tofu dry with a paper towel. Crumble the tofu up so it resembles something like ground beef or minced potatoes. Drain away any excess water that comes out of the tofu, and add it to your pot of chili. Stir the chili and cover the pot once more, and leave the chili to simmer for about 15 minutes or until the broth has thickened and reduced. Uncover the pot and simmer for a final 5-10 minutes until you have a thick chili that resembles the photo.
While the chili has been cooking on the stove, you can work on the cheese wraps. Pat boneless, skinless chicken breasts dry with a paper towel, then rub the olive oil into the flesh. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder. Heat a pan on high heat on your stovetop, and place the chicken seasoned side down in the pan. Cook the chicken undisturbed on one side until the spices char. Then, flip the chicken and continue to cook until the chicken is done (about 4+ minutes per side).
Set the finished chicken aside to cool and rest for about 5 minutes. Then, use a pair of forks to shred the chicken into fine, thin shreds. Add the shredded chicken to a mixing bowl. Finely dice celery, red onion, and green onion, and add these to the mixing bowl. Mix cream cheese and shredded cheddar cheese into the bowl until all the ingredients are combined into your Southwest chicken filling. Set this aside for later on.
Turn on your oven to preheat to 350 degrees and line a sheet tray with parchment paper. Lay the pepper jack cheese slices evenly distanced apart on the tray. Once your oven is preheated, cook the cheese slices in the oven for approximately 10 minutes or until they have melted into foldable slices. Watch the cheese slices as they melt, bubble, and harden into bendable squares with darkened edges. You can check on the progress by lifting the edge of a pepper jack slice with a spatula. If the slice peels away from the paper in a solid piece without sticking, the cheese is ready.
Scoop the chicken filling along the closest edge of each slice of cheese. Spread the filling into strips along the length of each cheese slice. One by one, roll the cheese slices up into wraps (like a burrito) as the cheese hardens into place. Make sure the seam of where the wrap closes is against your parchment paper. You may use your spatula to help you lift the hot cheese for rolling. Make sure your chicken filling is ready to go for this stage so you can quickly fill the wraps before the cheese hardens. Serve 2 cheese wraps with approximately 1 cup of chili.