Meals · Soups & stews

White chicken chili

Name: White chicken chili
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 2 tsp olive oil; 3 breasts chicken breast; 1 large onion yellow onions, diced; 4 cloves garlic, minced; 2 poblanos poblano pepper, seeded and diced; 2 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp dried oregano; 2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed; 1 1/2 cups sweet corn; 1 litre chicken broth; 1 tsp salt; juice of 1 lime; a handful fresh cilantro, chopped

The pale, green-chilli side of chilli: chicken, white beans and corn in a broth thickened by mashing some of the beans rather than adding cream. Legume fibre, lean poultry and a lot of liquid, which is about as good as a bowl of comfort food gets.

Time: 50 min (15 prep + 35 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 300 kcal
Protein: 32 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

2 tsp olive oil10 g
3 breasts chicken breast600 g
1 large onion yellow onions, diced150 g
4 cloves garlic, minced12 g
2 poblanos poblano pepper, seeded and diced200 g
2 tsp ground cumin5 g
1 tsp dried oregano2 g
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed480 g
1 1/2 cups sweet corn250 g
1 litre chicken broth1000 g
1 tsp salt5 g

To finish

juice of 1 lime20 g
a handful fresh cilantro, chopped10 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Brown the chicken breasts in the oil in a large pot, 3 minutes a side — colour, not cooked through. Lift them out.
Soften the onion and poblano in the same pot, 6–8 minutes, then add the garlic, cumin and oregano for a minute.
Return the chicken, add the beans, corn and broth, and simmer 20 minutes until the chicken shreds easily. Take it out, shred it with two forks, and return it.
Mash a ladleful of the beans against the side of the pot and stir it through — that's what makes it creamy without cream. Finish with the lime and cilantro.

Where does the creaminess come from?

Mashed beans. Most published versions reach for cream cheese or heavy cream at this point; the starch in the beans does the same job for a fraction of the calories, and it's a technique rather than a substitution.

Why this score

exceptionally filling

Low energy density — a lot of food for the calories.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

43% of kcal

84% water

21 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1799 kcal goes into the pot, 2744 g of ingredients comes out as ~2500 g of food → 72 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 72
Protein: (43%); 8 g
Fat: (20%); 2 g
Carbohydrates: (37%); 7 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 271 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.