Eating Hot Pot with friends is my happy place. I love sitting around a table of boiling soup and chatting with good company. In fact, vegetarian Hot Pot reminds me fondly of my time living in Beijing. At first, I was unsure of how vegetarian-friendly Hot Pot really was, but once my Beijing friends introduced me to how amenable Hot Pot can be for vegetarians and vegans, I was hooked.

Every business trip to Taiwan afterward, I always made time for a visit to my favorite all-you-can-eat Hot Pot restaurant, Mo-Mo-Paradise. In recent years, I’ve stopped traveling to Asia for work and I’ve really been missing Hot Pot.

So, it is no surprise that when I looked in the kitchen for what to eat for dinner and only found spinach, tofu, mushrooms, red onions, and an acorn squash, the first thought to that came to mind was vegetarian Hot Pot! In my Instant Pot!

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This Egg-White Chili Shakshuka combines three of my favorite things: egg-whites, chili, and shakshuka in just the best way. Shakshuka is usually a dish with poached eggs on top of a tomato, pepper, onion stew and is a delightfully satisfying breakfast.

However, sometimes my picky eating gets the best of me and my distaste of peppers and egg yolk ruins the experience. In an effort to make a Shakshuka that was perfect to my taste, I decided to make a version without the peppers and egg yolk. To bring more hardiness to the dish, I added kidney beans, which matched the tomato flavors perfectly.

This healthy, filling breakfast is packed with vegetables and healthy protein. It happens to also be vegetarian and gluten-free. By holding the eggs, it can be a delicious vegan stew for lunch or dinner as well. This is a versatile dish that translates across dietary restrictions and meal times. I’m super happy with the end result of my Egg-White Chili Shakshuka and I hope you enjoy it too!

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