Creamy Keto White Chicken Chili (No Beans)

Introduction

Our white chicken chili swaps the ground beef and red tomato base of a classic chili for shredded chicken, green chiles and cumin in a pale, creamy broth, with a squeeze of lime to finish.

Most versions also get much of their body from white beans. This one leaves them out and leans on the chicken instead: three cups of it, in a broth thickened with cream cheese and finished with a splash of heavy cream. It all happens in one pot, and it takes about 35 minutes from chopping the onion to ladling it out. Honestly, this is perfect for days when you want something creamier and less tomatoey.

What Goes In

• Cream cheese and heavy cream: These are what make it a white chili. The cream cheese does most of the work, turning plain chicken broth into something closer to a creamy soup, and the cream goes in at the end to round it out.
• Green chiles and Rotel: A can of diced green chiles brings the mild chile flavor, and a little drained Rotel adds bits of tomato and a bit more chile.
• Cumin, oregano, paprika and coriander: Cumin leads, at three times as much as each of the others.
• Cooked chicken: The chili never cooks the chicken from raw, so it only needs to heat through. Any cooked chicken you can shred works, but cooking your own gives you the broth too (more on that below).
• Lime: A squeeze goes in at the end, and it’s worth having a second lime to cut into wedges for the table.

Cooking Your Own Chicken and Broth

You can make this with rotisserie chicken and boxed broth, but when we made it, we boiled the chicken ourselves in water with a bouillon cube, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Then we strained that cooking liquid and used it as the broth in the chili. It adds a ton of flavor over rotisserie chicken and broth from a box, and you get both things the recipe needs out of one pot.

Cook the chicken until the thickest part reaches 165°F, let it cool enough to handle, and shred it. Measure 3 cups of the strained broth for the chili. Plan for the extra time: the 35 minutes on the recipe card start with the chicken already cooked.

The Nutrition Facts panel is calculated with boxed chicken broth, so homemade broth, especially with a bouillon cube in it, will change the numbers, sodium most of all.

Getting the Broth Smooth

The one place this recipe can go sideways is the cream cheese. It gets melted into the softened onion and garlic first, on its own, and only then does the broth go in.

Add the broth slowly, whisking as you pour. Pour in all three cups at once and you’ll be chasing little white lumps of cream cheese around the pot. Done gradually, the broth turns smooth and creamy before anything else goes in.

Serving It

In the photos, each bowl is finished with sliced green onions, which add a bit of color and a fresh bite against all that cream. Put out lime wedges too, so everyone can add more.

For something to go alongside, our green chile keto cornbread is made with almond flour instead of cornmeal, and it shares the green chiles.

Storing Leftovers

Get leftovers into the refrigerator within two hours of cooking. Kept covered, they’ll be good for three to four days, which is the USDA window for cooked leftovers. Reheat a portion on the stove or in the microwave, stirring as it warms, until it’s hot all the way through, to 165°F.

We haven’t tested freezing this one, so we can’t tell you how the creamy broth holds up once it’s thawed.

If you make it, tell us in the comments which cooked chicken you used: leftover roast, rotisserie or poached breast.