Creamy Smoked Sausage + White Bean Chili

Creamy Smoked Sausage + White Bean Chili will warm both your body and your soul on a chilly chili day. Enjoy this different comfort food twist on traditional chili!

How about a comfort food chili recipe for a cold fall day (that feels like winter! Just 6 degrees when I woke up this morning…). Creamy Smoked Sausage + White Bean Chili comes together so very easily — just add smoked sausage and cream cheese to a few pantry staples, and you’ll have dinner on the table in about 40 minutes.

I will freely admit that this is not the prettiest chili. However, sometimes in food, as in life, you’ll find the greatest depth of flavor in the most unassuming of packages.

I seem to be on something of a smoked sausage kick over here after last week’s squash-age harvest vegetable stew recipe… but this is only because my local grocery store had a buy one get two free sale recently. It’s funny what can inspire you to cook up something different sometimes, right? 🙂 

Creamy Smoked Sausage + White Bean Chili

Ingredients

1/2 Tbsp olive oil
14 oz smoked sausage or Polska kielbasa
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic (about six cloves)
32 oz chicken broth
2 cans white beans (I used Great Northern + cannellini), rinsed and drained
1 can corn, drained
2 cans 4 oz chopped mild green chiles
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne
4 oz cream cheese, softened and chopped

Directions

Take out the cream cheese to soften, and chop your onion, garlic, and sausage. (Make the sausage easy: Slice it into four lengthwise pieces, then just chop those up.) When you’re almost done chopping, start heating the olive oil in a Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat for about a minute.

Saute the sausage, onion, and garlic in olive oil over medium heat for about seven minutes, until onions begin to soften and sausage is browned, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, rinse and drain the beans, drain the corn, and open the cans of chiles.

Stir the broth, beans, corn, chiles, and spices into the pot with the browned sausage and onions, then bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer the chili for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the cream cheese into small pieces.

After the chili finishes simmering, just stir in the cream cheese until melted.

This smoked sausage white chili recipe is soooo comforting

I just enjoyed a bowl of this smoked sausage + white bean chili for lunch, and am kind of thinking about having it again for dinner. It’s just.that.good. The cream cheese adds just the right amount of creaminess and tang to cut the mild heat from the chopped green chiles, bringing balance to the chili and marrying all the flavors together.

This creamy smoked sausage + white bean chili recipe is naturally gluten free. Serve with toast or tortilla chips, and top with chopped green onion if you have any on hand.

Creamy Smoked Sausage + White Bean Chili, printable recipe

Looking for another smoked sausage chili idea?

Smoked sausage sometimes makes for a fun twist on more traditional beef chili recipes. For one alternative to this smoked sausage white chili, you can also check out this easy turkey kielbasa chili recipe. (You know, if you’re feeling more black-beans-and-tomatoes than you are white-beans-and-cream-cheese today.)

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