instant pot turkey thigh chili
Depending on your region and cultural tradition, you’re either a White Meat Family or a Dark Meat Family. As someone who hadn’t even tried a chicken thigh until age 23, it’s clear what side of those tracks I grew up on. Yet despite a Very White Thanksgiving, I started experimenting with dark meat turkey last year, when legs and thighs are temporarily plentiful in the Whole Foods case. I don’t like to waste a chance.
Unwrapping them last year, I learned that turkey thighs are nothing like chicken thighs. They are thick, fatty, and extremely tough. They take 5ever to cook, and can be a pain in the ass to cook correctly. They might as well be the beef chuck of poultry. The Instant Pot, however, can pressurize the toughness out of them to make them into a turkey chili.
While not a terribly fast chili, it is a satisfying one: slow cooked, tender meat, lots of flavor, and a thick texture thanks to my secret and very Midwestern ingredient, powdered taco seasoning, which happens to have cornstarch and thickens this particular chili into a proper late fall cold night stew.
This exact same recipe can be made with an equivalent amount of bone in, skin on chicken thighs; just change the cook time from 50 minutes to 18 in order to accommodate chicken’s more delicate sensibilities.
just making sure you really get to see all that shredded turk texture
RECIPE
Meaty turkey thighs are quickly made fall-apart tender in the Instant Pot, then combined with pinto beans canned chiles to make a hearty homemade chili that gives us an entirely new way to turkey during the Thanksgiving season.
Effortful time: 10 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Serves: 4-6
YOU NEED
2 turkey thighs, bone-in and skin-on, about 2 1/2 lbs. total
1 tsp. salt
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2x 4 oz cans chopped green chiles
1 4 oz can chopped jalapenos, optional
4 cups chicken broth; I use Better than Bouillon
8 tbsp. taco seasoning; I use Penzey’s but 2 packets of your favorite taco seasoning will work just fine too
2x 15 oz cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
Juice from one lime
Fresh sliced jalapeños, Greek yogurt, avocado, and/or chopped fresh cilantro, for serving
Hot sauce, optional but encouraged; I like Valentina Black Label here
MAKE IT
Dump the ingredients and cook the chili. Put the turkey thighs, salt, onion, garlic, chiles, jalapeños, chicken broth, and taco seasoning into the instant pot. Stir it up. Set to high pressure, 1 hour. When it’s done, let naturally release for 10 minutes before manually releasing the rest. Remove the turkey to a board, ideally in one piece, using tongs.
Simmer the chili. Add the drained beans and lime juice to the instant pot and switch to sauté-low. Let this simmer for 10 minutes until the beans are warmed and soft and the liquid has thickened slightly, which happens because of the cornstarch in taco seasoning.
Shred the turkey. Remove the turkey thighs to a cutting board, ideally in one piece, using tongs. carefully remove the skin from the turkey and shred the meat. Do what you want with the skin and bones, and add the meat back into the pot, and let simmer along with the beans.
Serve it up. Ladle into bowls. Stir in a little full fat Greek yogurt (the Mediterranean sour cream!) with extra dollops on top, and layer with sliced fresh jalapeños, avocado cubes, cilantro, or all of the above.