Freezing Vegetarian Chilli

Our answer

Nigella's Vegetarian Chilli With Cornbread Topping (from FEAST) has a sauce made with lentils and beans that is topped with cornbread and then baked in the oven. The sauce part of the dish can be cooked in advance and frozen. We would not recommend freezing the sauce with the cornbread topping. Once the sauce has cooled (and within 2 hours of cooking), transfer it to airtight containers and refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

The vegetarian chilli sauce should be thawed overnight in the fridge. Transfer the sauce to the baking dish (or dishes), top with the cornbread mixture and bake in the oven for the time recommended in the recipe, making sure that the sauce is piping hot all of the way through before removing the chilli from the oven. For larger numbers it would be better to make 4 pans of the cornbread-topped chilli using pans with dimensions similar to the one mentioned in the recipe, rather than one massive pan, as it could be difficult to get the cornbread cooked though and the sauce piping hot in a very large pan.