Here's an easy vegetarian chili recipe we've been using for years in my house:

https://pastebin.com/84cwiJ02

Thank you! I'll have to try this. weird that it uses a less chili powder than I usually use in my meat chili (roughly 3 tbs for 2lbs of meat and a can of beans). Maybe I'm just used to a ton more spice. I could have been amping it up after going away from red meat

That could be because the chili molecule has polarity and clumps together in fatty environments, like meat sauces and yoghurt. Conversely it gets dispersed by water. That recipe probably has a bit less fat than what your usual meaty one has, so less chili goes further :)

It's actually the other way around: capsaicin is non-polar, that's why it is hydrophobic but soluble in oil and fat.

Have you tried impossible meat? It’s so satisfying and mimics meat better than anything I’ve tried out there.