8 Pumpkin Chili Recipes, From Turkey to Sweet Potato

Pumpkin chili can mean turkey with two beans, beef with fresh pumpkin pieces, or mushrooms and black beans under a curl of crema. These eight bowls make different fall dinners.

The orange pieces aren’t always pumpkin. Lyuba’s are fresh cooking pumpkin; Stephanie’s are sweet potato, with pumpkin purée blended into the chili. Each pictured chapter leads to its creator’s original recipe.

Red tomato, pale beans and green pepper make a busy bowl in the best way. The fine turkey crumbles leave all three easy to see.

Nothing needs to be sprinkled on top for this one to look inviting. Its interest is already in the chili.

Lime wedges and scattered cilantro brighten the picture without hiding the chicken and beans. Those larger breast pieces give the bowl a different rhythm from ground meat.

In White Bean Pumpkin Chicken Chili, the green pieces are Hatch chiles. That detail deserves to travel with the name.

Pepitas repeat the pumpkin theme at a smaller scale. They are a finishing detail; the fresh cooking-pumpkin pieces are the reason this bowl stands apart.

This is the only recipe here with pumpkin in both forms. For once, the orange pieces really are pumpkin.

Cumin, cinnamon and chili powder belong to this recipe’s seasoning list. The visual character comes from the sliced sausage sitting among the finer beef crumbles.

Aimee Mars calls it Pumpkin Chili. The simple title opens a very specific bowl: two forms of meat, with pumpkin blended into the tomatoes.

The white crema makes a clear curl across the rust-orange chili. The chopped mushrooms and black beans remain visible around it, so the topping does not become the whole story.

Easy Pumpkin Black Bean Chili is the source name. The mushrooms matter just as much when you picture what that name will bring to the bowl.

There is plenty to look at without a topping: pale quinoa curls, dark beans and green-edged zucchini. A garnish would add less than those small differences already do.

The grain stays visible between the vegetables. That is the feature to remember in Pumpkin Quinoa Chili, rather than another orange cube.

The substantial cubes give the eye somewhere to land. Black beans, tan pinto beans and bits of tomato keep the rest of the bowl from disappearing into one orange color.

Sweet Potato Pumpkin Chili names both orange ingredients. That is a helpful title: it holds the difference the picture alone could blur.

The whole kidney beans give the eye something distinct to meet. Around them, the lentils and pumpkin make a more blended-looking bowl than the quinoa version.

Crock Pot Pumpkin Red Lentil Chili keeps the slow cooker in the source name. That is the recipe to reopen, with its own settings and timing.