I was looking at the other “name my chili” thread and got to wondering re chili. I’ve crafted a pretty good spaghetti sauce over the years, and disdain canned spaghetti sauces, but my chili’s always built off a can of Hormel chili to which I add a bunch of stuff, and I know there’s probably a better way out there.
If I really wanted to make great chili where do I start? What are your favorite recipes?
Wick Fowler is a really good spice mix.
I cook up onions in some oil, brown and drain some beef, and follow the Fowler directions more or less. I leave the masa out. I may add more chili powder but then, I can handle pretty hot stuff—you might tread lightly there and have some sour cream on hand. I don’t use beans…I don’t want to cut the heat. Sometimes I also cook and add sliced jalapenos.
ETA: I also leave out the dried onion the mix includes, of course, since I used fresh.
Start with one or more meats (more for more flavor). Cook it in a pot and make sure to deglaze the bottom to add more flavor to the chili. Then add various vegetables (the typical ones are onions and peppers, but add more unique ones for a more unique chili). Garlic is, I’d say, essential. Then add crushed/diced tomatoes, using the liquid to deglaze some more. Add your beans. Then the really fun part comes: adding spices to really personalize it. I like to add a little worcestershire sauce along with a various blend of chili peppers (including New Mexico, De Arbol, etc.).
Simmer for a while and serve.
I make a sort of “dump” chili which is legendary (in my own mind, at least). It’s a family recipe - all of us kids make it the same way my mom does. It’s not high cuisine, and some would say it’s not even chili, but we love it. It’s simple, filling, good, and lasts for a while.
This makes a 6 - 8 qt. dutch oven’s worth:
2 cans stewed tomatoes
2 cans kidney beans - I use 1 can light, 1 can dark
1 small can (4 oz?) tomato paste
1 can Niblets
1 lb (or more) ground beef
1 onion, diced
garlic, minced
chili powder
cayenne pepper
Brown the beef with the onion and garlic. While it’s browning, dump a bunch of chili powder and cayenne pepper on the whole mess and stir in. (I use a lot; go to your taste). Dump in the tomatoes, tomato paste, kidney beans, and niblets. Let simmer for a coupla hours. Serve with fixins.
You can add whatever else you like, too - I commonly add hot sauce and salsa, sometimes jalapenos. My brother adds a tiny bit of cinnamon. It’s easy to dial up or down in the hotness department, too.
Ja, it’s basic, but it’s yummy.
I have a recipe for Texas (no bean) chili that I collated from a few award-winning chili recipes that I found on the internet… If you want a no-bean chili, or a meat chili recipe to start with and add beans, this one won’t let you down:
1/4 pound bacon
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into small squares
1.5 pounds of lean ground beef (95% or so)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
3 cups chopped onion (one large red, one large white onion)
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
4 finely chopped jalapeño peppers
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup white vinegar
5 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 (14 1/4-ounce) can low-salt beef broth
1 can diced (20 ounces?) tomatoes
1 (12-ounce) can beer (dark or Mexican)
4-6 tablespoons corn meal
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup chopped onion (optional)
1/2 cup fat-free sour cream (optional)
Cook bacon in large pot until clear. Add beef cubes with salt and pepper, cook until brown. Remove beef cubes, add ground beef, salt, pepper, cook until browned. Remove from pan.
Add 3 cups onion to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add cumin, jalapeño, and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add wine, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Return beef to pan.
Stir in vinegar and next 5 ingredients (vinegar through beer); bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until beef is tender, stirring occasionally. Uncover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Stir 4-6 tablespoons of corn meal to thicken, as needed
Stir in cilantro.
Serve with onion and sour cream, if desired
You can’t go wrong with Mr. Rennaisance Man – Carroll Shelby’s chili
For a beginner, either Fowler’s or Shelby’s will do. So will Morton’s. Better still, punch “chili recipe” into the SDMB search engine and watch the fur fly. 
This thread, for example.
Wow, these recipes sound amazing. I’m definitely going to try some of the variations here next time I make chilli.
My simple but tasty recipe (serves about 4, we usually cook this for 2 and have enough left for lunch the next day):
½ onion, chopped
Red, green and yellow papers to taste (I use about a quarter to half of each), chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
About 2 red chillis (I like it spicy, you may want to start with less then add more to taste)
500g mince, preferably lean
1 ½ tablespoons tomato puree
1 can chopped tomatoes
Half a beef stock cube (either crumble it straight in or make up a stock)
A generous glug of either red wine or beer
A splash of Worcester sauce
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
½ can kidney beans, drained
Fry the onion, garlic and chilli in a little oil in a large, deep frying pan until the onion has softened. Add the chopped peppers and fry for a few minutes more. Add the mince and cook until browned, breaking up the mince as you cook it. At this point, if you haven’t used lean mince, you might want to drain out some of the fat and oil from the frying pan or your chilli could end up a bit greasy. Now add your wine or beer, turn up the heat, and boil for a couple of minutes.
Turn the heat back down and add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, cumin, coriander, worcester sauce and beef stock. If you’ve opted to make up the stock with water rather than just crumbling it in you’ll need to simmer for longer to give the chilli time to thicken up. Now simmer for about 40 mins, add the kidney beans and cook for about another 10 minutes.
I usually serve with nachos, sour cream and sometimes guacamole, and melt some mozzarella over the chilli. Oh, I would also add sweetcorn to this recipe if my flatmate wasn’t so firmly against it.
I agree, we use about 60% beef, 40% pork.
Instead of using ground/mince meat we use whole muscle meat and cut it into half inch cubes. It browns nicely in a a bit of olive oil, garlic and onions is a must. Nobody in the house likes bell peppers, so we use a mix of cubanelles/banana peppers, fresh and smoked dried ancho chiles, a jalapeno or two, and some of pensey’s medium chili powder [which is more or less the dried powdered versions of what we used fresh], epazote [an herb commonly used in mexican cooking] some oregano and some rosemary. We like a combination of fresh and canned tomatoes, no beans, a touch of cocoa powder, and a dash of salt. [beans are cooked separately, and refried. and served on the side, along with ‘spanish’ rice]
Instead of plain water, we like to use defatted homemade chicken stock.
For plain simplicity my brother makes a box bash chili that is decent, he fries up ground beef, dumps a can of drained kidney beans, and a can of diced tomatoes into the pot and adds hot salsa to taste. Cook it for an hour, serve with crackers. Sort of Purina Bachelor chow version of chili, but oddly edible.
This recipe is my own creation and provides a slightly less fatty version (I’m pretty liberal with the olive oil). It’s definitely not as heavy as with beef, and is very flavorful. The spice amounts are deliberately vague, as I eyeball it. At a minimum you will want 3-4 TBSP of ancho and a tablespoon of cumin. Easy on the chipotle unless you like it really hot. Easy on the cinnamon (a pinch is good).
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 jalapeño peppers, minced (optional)
Ancho chili powder
Cumin powder
Chipotle chili powder
Cinnamon
Mexican oregano, dried
Smoked Spanish paprika
Chocolate (60% cacao, minimum) - optional
Olive oil
3 cans black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
Salt, to taste
Cut the chicken into 1 inch pieces (easiest to do when partially frozen). Spread out on cutting board. Liberally sprinkle the ancho chili (at least three tablespoons) over chicken. Repeat with the cumin (at least two tablespoons), then lightly with the chipotle pepper (probably about two teaspoons or less; it’s hot). Add a liberal amount (several tablespoons) of Mexican (NOT Greek or Italian) oregano and a small pinch of cinnamon. Add a teaspoon or so of paprika. Toss the chicken until well coated with spices. Heat about ¼ cup (maybe less) of olive oil in a deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and scrape in any leftover spices. Brown the spices well, turning the chicken frequently. This method releases the chile oils in the spices, making for a deeper flavor.
When the chicken is cooked and the spices browned, add the onions, peppers and garlic. Continue to sauté over medium heat. Open the tomatoes and drain the juice into a bowl. Chop the tomatoes until they’re at a size you like. When the onions and peppers are cooked, add the tomatoes and juice and the black beans. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Add a couple of squares of the chocolate. Let simmer for about an hour or more.
To double this recipe, you really only need to double the amount of chicken, beans, tomatoes and garlic. The spices will adjust themselves as you dust the meat. You can eyeball the veggies to see if it needs more.
For whatever reason, I read “chili” as child…
First you need to decide what chili is. To many people it never contains tomatoes or beans.
Here’s mine.
You can play around with what which chiles to use and how much. As written it make a mildly hot chili.
Chili Recipe
3 cups dry pinto beans (shut up)
3 TBS vegetable oil or lard
1 lb round chili grind
1 lb chuck
½ lb Italian sausage
liquid smoke
2 12oz-bottles of beer
3 TB-cumin
1 TB-cinnamon
2 TB-oregano (Mexican if available)
4/anchos or mulatos
2/anaheim
6/cascabels
2/ chipotles
1/large yellow onion
1/small red onion
4/cloves garlic
1/28 oz can chopped or crushed tomatoes, do not drain
6-12 oz tomato sauce
Salt to taste
Preparation
Night before
Cover beans with water to soak overnight.
Soak cumin, cinnamon, oregano in 1 bottle of beer overnight
Next day
Cook beans until done
Chop chuck into ¼ to ½ inch pieces, mix in liquid smoke, set aside
Roast fresh peppers, steam, peel, re-hydrate dried peppers, de-seed and puree
Force peppers through sieve
Fine chop onions, dice garlic, saute in oil/lard (onions first)until soft
Add tomatoes, pureed peppers and beer/spice mixture
Bring to simmer
Brown round, sausage
Sear chuck in small batches, deglaze pan with part of 2nd bottle of beer, and add to above mixture.
Drink the rest of the beer.
Simmer 2 1/2-3 hours
Add tomato sauce and liquid smoke to taste during simmer
Taste and adjust seasonings
Add beans(or throw out) and simmer 1/2 hour more
Several of these recipes look great. I will add my +1 to using a combination beef/pork stew meat. I also really suggest making fresh chili powder, it makes a world of difference. Check out Alton Brown’s recipe for it here
I am now going to make chili for the games tomorrow. These all sound delicious.
OK people, let me drop some food knowledge on ya. Many if not most of the flavonoids in dried spices are fat-soluble rather than water-soluble. So adding spices to the hot fat in the pan before adding the liquid will result in more flavor.
Hear me now, believe me later. Just give it a try. Soften your onions and garlic in olive oil or lard. Add a great quantity of chili powder (I like the New Mexico stuff), a goodly amount of cumin and some Mexican oregano, not the Greek stuff. With the heat on medium, saute the spices for a few minutes, stirring all the while. Take care not to burn them jet black, but they will blacken up a tad. then proceed with the meat, beans if you wish, et al.
This will result in really really good chili. I gar-on-tee.
Absolutely! This is one of the most important rules of Hungarian cooking. To get that rich, paprika flavor (which is a type of chile), other that using high-quality Hungarian or Spanish paprika (which usually has a smokier flavor) you have to add the paprika to the hot fat. Be careful not to burn it, though, as this will lend an acrid, bitter flavor to the dish which you cannot get rid of. In Hungarian cooking, the technique is to fry your onions up in fat, remove briefly from the heat, add the paprika and stir it up until the mixture is dissolved, while giving it about a minute to cook through. You then return it to the heat with ingredients that have a bit of water content (broth, veggies, etc.) which keeps the paprika from burning.
The difference between adding a teaspoon of paprika to the oil versus after you’ve added your liquid is astonishing. Cooking the paprika in oil creates this blood-red mixture that is highly flavored and permeates the entire dish. Dumping it in the water makes a weird suspension that contains flecks of powdered paprika and doesn’t really do much to flavor the dish at all. When people complain about the lack of flavor in paprika, a lot of time this is due to not using the proper techniques for extracting the flavor (in addition to using inferior brands.)
The exact same tips with paprika work with chile peppers of any sort. In fact, most spices benefit from combined with the oil and cooked for a minute or two before other ingredients are added.
Consider making your own chili powder as well. I usually buy a half pound of dried ancho peppers and a half pound of dried anaheim peppers. Deseed them all and cut them into strips with a pair of scissors or kitchen shears. Roast them up on a skillet for a while, toss them into the blender along with some roasted cumin seeds (about an ounce) and blend the hell out of everything. It’s way better than the store bought stuff and your house will smell delicious all day.
Fair warning, this will cause some minor eye burning (about like chopping an onion for me) and also clear your sinuses out some but it’s really so good that it’s worth a few minutes of discomfort. Put it in an airtight container and it will keep for at least 4 months and I’d assume a lot longer, 4 months is just the longest I’ve gone before running out.
Thanks to all these are great places to start.