Our Paleo White Chicken Chili is a cozy bowl of this creamy and delicious chili that is all you need this Fall and Winter! Made with real, simple ingredients. Perfect for a delicious dinner!
The Best Paleo White Chicken Chili
Table of Contents
During this time of year, we are ALL about the cozy soups, stews and chili’s right now! There is just something about watching Sunday football with a pot of chili simmering in the kitchen. This flavor-packed white chicken chili recipe is a wonderful spin on a classic slow cooker chili. Add all your favorite toppings on your comforting bowl and enjoy!
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Flavor: I love the chili flavor here! Option to add more or less chili powder.
- Whole30/Paleo: I wanted to make a white chicken chili that was Whole30 and Paleo, since I eat that way a lot of the time and I know a lot of you do too! If you aren’t concerned with Whole30/Paleo feel free to add some white beans if you want!
- Leftovers: This is one of those recipes that just gets better and better! I love having it for leftovers the next day!
What You Will Need
- chicken broth
- boneless chicken breasts
- coconut milk
- minced garlic
- yellow onion
- olive oil
- green chilis
- mushrooms
- Spices: ground cumin, garlic powder, chili powder, ground black pepper, kosher salt
- Garnish: Dairy-Free Coconut Sour Cream (Whole30), Avocado, Jalapeno slices, Cilantro
Recipe FAQs and Tips
- Why is it called white chicken chili? Because there aren’t any tomatoes, which are typically found in chili. There is still chili powder, which gives it the red coloring, but there are no diced tomatoes, tomato paste, etc. here. That is there the “White” comes from. And then it is obviously made with chicken instead of beef or turkey!
Other Recipes You Might Like:
- Irish Beef Stew
- The BEST Classic Paleo Chili
- Whole30 Zuppa Toscana
- Loaded Baked Potato Soup (Whole30)
- Easy Turkey Chili
Don’t forget to check out my Instagram account for some behind-the-scenes action! Or give me a follow on Facebook or see what I am pinning on Pinterest!
Print
Paleo White Chicken Chili
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 hours
- Total Time: 5 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 6–8 servings 1x
- Category: Soup
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Description
Our delicious and easy to make, Paleo White Chicken Chili recipe needs to be on your meal plan this week! Makes great leftovers too!
Ingredients
Scale
Chili:
- 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (sub avocado oil)
- 1 cup yellow onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
- 1 can full fat coconut milk (use an immersion blender to fully incorporate first)
- 8oz canned green chilis
- 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 3 tablespoons chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt (more to taste)
- 1 pint mushrooms, sliced
Garnish:
- dairy-free coconut sour cream (Whole30)
- avocado, sliced or cubed
- jalapeño, sliced
- fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Cook Chicken: Put chicken in a crock pot and cover with broth. Set to High setting and let cook for 1 hour or until chicken is fully cooked and easy to shred. Remove chicken from crock pot, shred with fork, and return to crock pot.
- Sauté: In large skillet, add olive oil and bring to a medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic; stir until reduced, about 2-3 minutes.
- Combine: Add onion mixture to the crock pot along with the coconut milk, green chilis, cumin, garlic powder, chili powder, pepper and salt.
- Cook Chili: Stir to combine and let cook on low setting for 4-6 hours. Add mushrooms about 30 minutes before you want to eat. Taste and add any additional salt or seasoning, as desired.
- Serve: Enjoy with dairy-free sour cream, avocado, jalapeño and/or cilantro.
Notes
- Stove Top Directions: simply simmer the chicken in chicken broth in a large dutch oven for approx. 20 minutes or until fully cooked. Shred and place back in the pot with chicken broth. Follow directions 3-5 and let simmer for approx. 15-20 minutes. Add mushrooms and simmer until they cook down, about 10 minutes. Serve immediately.
- Instant Pot Directions: On Sauté function, add olive oil and garlic. Allow garlic to cook about 1 minute. Add mushrooms and onion. Cook until slightly cooked down, about 2-3 minutes. Scoop out onto plate and set aside. Add chicken broth first and use a spoon to scrape the bottom, loosing any onion bits. Add chicken, cumin, garlic powder, chili powder, salt and pepper to Instant Pot. Ensure Instant Pot is set to Seal and cook on High Pressure for 20 minutes. Allow pressure to naturally release for 10 minutes then manually release any remaining pressure. Remove chicken breasts and set on plate. Shred with fork and return meat to Instant Pot. Add the onions and mushrooms along with the coconut milk. Stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning, as desired. If you feel the chili is not warm enough after adding the coconut milk simply turn on the Sauté function again to bring it back up to temp. Serve with avocado, cilantro, lime, jalapeño and dairy-free sour cream.
- Frozen Chicken: If using frozen chicken, add 5-7 minutes to the cook time for the Instant Pot method, depending upon thickness.
- Chicken Broth: For Whole30/Paleo double check the chicken broth ingredients.
- Coconut Milk: we always use an immersion blender to reincorporate canned coconut milk that has separated in the can.
- Nutrition Facts: the estimated nutrition facts provided does NOT include any toppings.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: Approx. 1 cup
- Calories: 273
- Sugar: 2 g
- Sodium: 1125.2 mg
- Fat: 14.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 8.1 g
- Protein: 28.5 g
- Cholesterol: 85.2 mg
Nancy says
If I am making the chili a day ahead, can I add the mushrooms too or should I wait until before serving?
Erin says
You can go ahead and add them as directed in the recipe – should be just fine!
Jessie says
Hi!! Is there a way to add beans to this recipe?? Thank you 🙂
Erin says
Definitely! I would just add a can or two of like a Great Northern Bean in with everything else!
Gloria says
Hi! I’m completely new to your site and wanted to know if you have any nutrió al information for any of your recipes? I’m particularly interested in calories per serving.
Erin says
Hi Gloria! Welcome – glad to have you here! We are currently working on getting nutritional info into each recipe card, but it is a little bit of a process. Thank you for your patience as we work on bringing that to you!
Allison says
Hi Erin! This looks delicious! But I don’t like mushrooms. Is there anything I could substitute them with to keep it hearty?
Thanks!
Dani Auld says
I made this for the first time for dinner last night and it was AMAZING! My husband absolutely loved it!
Erin says
So happy to hear you and your husband enjoyed it, Dani! And thank you so much for taking the time to leave your feedback + review – I really appreciate it!
Alison says
Is there a trick to thicken it? Flavor outstanding just didn’t get to the chili consistency
Erin says
Hi Alison – so glad you thought the flavor was outstanding! As far as consistency – you can increase the amount of chicken and mushrooms to make it more hearty and you could even sub some more of the broth for additional coconut milk. That being said, since this is a white chicken chili, it doesn’t have any of the tomatoes or tomato paste that normally help thicken a traditional chili. Additionally, since this is paleo/Whole30 there also aren’t any beans to help thicken it either. So again, if you want it a little more hearty I would simply increase the amount of chicken + mushrooms you are using or play with how much coconut milk you are using! Hope that helps!
Jamie says
Hello, the recipe looks awesome, but my family does not like coconut flavor at all. Is there anything I can substitute in its place that is still W30 compliant? Thank you
Erin says
Hi Jamie – for what it’s worth I personally can’t taste any coconut with all the chili powder, etc. As for a substitute, I don’t know if there is a great substitute for the thickness of coconut milk that would still be Whole30 compliant. You could potentially try like an unflavored Nutpods or something, but I haven’t personally tried so I can’t really guarantee the outcome. Let me know if you try something!
MANDI says
What would you sub for mushrooms? I have a picky family.
Kathy Palahnuk says
Can’t wait to try this. I just prepared this in my instantpot but didn’t see where to add the green chilies so I added them with the chicken and other spices!
MaryAnn Parker says
Hello Erin. Great recip daughter made it and said it’s wonderful so she shared recipe with me!.Question I have is: did you really mean to add “3 tablespoons” of chili powder? Seems like a lot. Or did you mean Teaspoons? Also when are green chili’s added? Seems like it would be very very hot.
My daughter only used 1Tablespoon of chili powder and left out green chilies since recipes doesn’t say when to add them.
Help!
Thanks
MaryAnn
Erin says
Hi MaryAnn! Glad you enjoyed the recipe! Yes, I really did mean 3 tablespoons of chili powder 🙂 Feel free to add a tablespoon at a time if that works better for you. The green chilis are added in Step 6 where it says “Add onion mixture to crock pot along with the remaining ingredients (except for the mushrooms).” Hope that helps!
molly says
for the instant pot directions, it does not specify when to add the green chilis. I assume with the coconut milk?
Erin says
Hi Molly – oh shoot, sorry about that! Yes – adding them with the coconut milk will work!
April says
Could you please share the nutritional breakdown? Thanks!
Daisy gauna says
Hi made this also color didn’t come out same is it cause I didn’t use hand blender to mix the coco milk?
Amber Claxton says
Making this now! But mine is nowhere near the same color, did I do something wrong? Followed the recipe step by step.
Erin says
Hi, Amber! If you are talking about the red color, that seems to happen after the soup has cooked and then sits for a bit for some reason, due to the chili powder. Maybe it could have to do with the brand of chili powder you used? I have a tutorial on this soup (using the stove-top method) on my Instagram Highlights if you want to double check there as well!
Mel says
That’s alot of chilli! 227g?!? Is this correct? My green chilli’s are hot, I’m in Australia.
Erin says
Hi, Mel! So in the U.S. basically every grocery store sells little cans of diced green chiles that are really quite mild! So the result is just a mild spiciness – sorry that doesn’t translate so well into the Australian market! I would just use your best judgment and add according to your taste and knowledge of how spicy your chili’s are there!!
Mel says
Thanks Erin, I used my fresh green chillies that are super hot, we love a lot of chilli, so I used 4 of them. This dish was sooooo delicious!! I served it with rice. Husband loved it too! I’ll definitely make this again! Thanks xo
Erin says
Yay!! So glad to hear that you liked it! :). Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Liza Voges says
Looks yummy! No tomatoes???
Erin says
Nope! No tomatoes! I don’t think a lot of white chicken chili’s have tomatoes in them. There is some chili powder which is where the red color comes from 😊
Liza says
Ah hah…that’s why it’s white! Thank you.
Erin says
No problem!! 😊