Rant Yes, Chili does has beans.

[Perknose]

These give you heat, but don't make your entire pot of chili taste like burning - you get heat plus flavor, instead of only heat.

Agreed, and thank you for pointing this out, as you have far more (well earned) culinary cred here than I. "Heat" suffers from BS macho, to a ridiculous degree. I always want heat plus flavor. As an aside, I feel the same about IPAs. The race to add more and more hops, for bragging rights, crowds out the flavor.

Btw, read your linked articles from Drewcifer re: the demise of "Texas Red" at Chilis. #Sad

My own lament will strike many as disgustingly low rent as it involves Taco Bell, but here it is anyway. Since its inception, and for years and years afterwards, you could get a truly fine (mho) salsa verde to slather on your discount Tex-Mex slop there. Long after most of their hot sauces were available only in tiny little plastic packages, you could get the salsa verde, ladled out separately from a "vat," if you knew to ask for it. Then, that went away, and they substituted a form of salsa verde in plastic packs. It wasn't the same. Now, I think, even that may have gone away. Not sure, as I haven't been to a Taco Bell in quite some time.

I've been making a pot a week for a couple months now, in my Instant Pot. Notes:

1. Bacon is my #1 must-have ingredient. 8 slices of bacon, chopped with scissors, sauteed in the Instant Pot until crispy. The bacon itself isn't important; the fat is, because of the flavor it adds. I tested this by making a baconless-batch & then adding in the bacon fat I save from making bacon. HUGE umami boost!

2. I like chunks of meat. At the moment, I've been doing sous-vide steak & cubing that up. On my list is to try a 36-hour SV chuck roast to (1) get more chunks, and (2) reduce cost, because an 8oz NY Strip is like $8 & doesn't give you nearly as many chunks as I want.

3. I find that I do like darker flavors - soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, fish sauce (Red Boat!), cocoa powder, etc. Trader Joe's mushroom umami powder is also pretty good. I'm not anti-MSG either; it's on the list of things to try in the future. I usually use a broth or stock (chicken or beef); I have bouillon methods (pastes & cubes) on my list of things to mess around with in the future. I suspect I can boost up the beefy flavor with a concentrated bouillon cube.

4. I always add beans, but I don't care about the variety itself - I just get a mix. Sometimes I do like having larger beans in there to accent the smaller ones.

5. 18 minutes does just fine in the Instant Pot. I pre-brown the meat first. The IP tends to scorch things like dairy & tomato-based produces, so you kind of have to layer the ingredients in, then stir it afterwards.

6. I like smoked paprika. I do chili powder & a few other powders. Cumin sometimes. Been going through Flatiron's Peppers lately, which add a nice heat without taking over the overall flavor.

7. Chili Cheese Fritos are excellent with chili. I like cornbread as well, but haven't found the perfect recipe yet. I definitely like more cakey & honey-sweet cornbread than dry, mealy cornbread. For my meal-prep, I use Souper Cubes to freeze the chili into bricks & use a mini-loaf pan to make personal-sized cornbread cakes to dip into the chili. Shredded cheese, scallions, and sour cream are good toppings.

8. I am a proponent of tomatoes in chili. I usually do a salsa, plus a small can of tomato paste, and then usually a can of diced tomatoes with peppers in it. Sometimes I'll add a green salsa, or use fire-roasted tomatoes, or anything else I can find in the Spanish aisle, liked canned hot peppers. I think fresh peppers add quite a bit of flavor & sometimes do jalapenos or just poblanos (roast 'em first), but they're not a key ingredient for me. I've added cornstarch in the past to thicken the chili up via a slurry if it's too soup after cooking.

9. My goal is to create the Real Ultimate Chili this year. Which is a highly subjective thing, haha! My framework is: bacon (chopped & sauteed, for the fat), tender chunks of steak, ground beef, beans, and some type of pasty/chunk/liquidy tomatoes (I am to offend chili-lovers of all walks of life, haha). I have a solid foundation, but it's nowhere near where I want it. I don't quite know enough about the interactions of flavors to even know what I'm looking for quite yet, but I do know that it's not perfect yet, haha!

Marry me! 😛

 

[snoopy7548]

You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I think there are really 4 kinds of chilis:

1. Texas Red (meat only)
2. Yankee Chili (beans & meat)
3. Vegetarian (beans only, no meat)
4. The weird ones (like white bean & venison chili)

I think chili is more about the spirit of chili than a strict definition. The best chili I've ever had was from a hunter friend of mine - white bean & venison. It was definitely chili, not stew, not soup. So there's a certain character that chili has. I think heat can be optional, but some heat is a Best Practice. I've been making my chili lately with corn in it, which you think would turn it more into a stew, but nope, it's still definitely chili! I've also really enjoyed using Flatiron Peppers:

Flatiron Pepper Co

You'll never go back to red pepper flakes! Flatiron Pepper creates unique pepper flake blends that showcase a variety of peppers, such as Jalapeno, Habanero, Ghost Pepper, Chipotle, Hatch Green Chile, Ancho, Carolina Reaper, Moruga Scorpion, Scotch Bonnet, and many more.

www.flatironpepper.com

These give you heat, but don't make your entire pot of chili taste like burning - you get heat plus flavor, instead of only heat.

You forgot ATOT chili: meat, beans, tofu, no beans, hot dogs, pineapple, kiwi, clams, Froot Loops, and Chicago deep dish pizza.

 

[whm1974]

I've actually made some pretty good chili with no chili peppers.

Which is odd because the discussion always focuses on beans vs. meat.

DUDE!!! THAT ISN'T CHILI!!! For the last time Chili Peppers are what gives Chili Con Carne it's name. And there is nothing odd at all about this.

 

[Kaido]

Agreed, and thank you for pointing this out, as you have far more (well earned) culinary cred here than I. "Heat" suffers from BS macho, to a ridiculous degree. I always want heat plus flavor. As an aside, I feel the same about IPAs. The race to add more and more hops, for bragging rights, crowds out the flavor.

Btw, read your linked articles from Drewcifer re: the demise of "Texas Red" at Chilis. #Sad

My own lament will strike many as disgustingly low rent as it involves Taco Bell, but here it is anyway. Since its inception, and for years and years afterwards, you could get a truly fine (mho) salsa verde to slather on your discount Tex-Mex slop there. Long after most of their hot sauces were available only in tiny little plastic packages, you could get the salsa verde, ladled out separately from a "vat," if you knew to ask for it. Then, that went away, and they substituted a form of salsa verde in plastic packs. It wasn't the same. Now, I think, even that may have gone away. Not sure, as I haven't been to a Taco Bell in quite some time.

Yeah, I've never understood the "all-heat, no-flavor" thing.

I'm actually not that good of a cook, believe it or not...I'm just good at finding recipes online & following the instructions that someone else had to make a dozen batches to figure out, hahaha. My strength more comes from the average computer nerd's strength: finding efficient ways to automate doing the same task over & over again! Why do it twice, when you could just write a script? Which is why I like the Instant Pot, Sous Vide, and Meal Prep approaches so much, lol.

Also, I'm not food-judgemental! I hit up Taco Bell a couple times a month myself, haha! Their food has improved quite a bit & their sauces are actually pretty decent, plus the pricing on everything is ridiculously good. I usually don't pack dinner with me because I plan on being home, but sometimes duty calls at work & I'm stuck at a customer's site late, so I'll just grab something out, like BK or Taco Bell, or lately Popeye's chicken sandwich. Om nom nom!

 

[zinfamous]

@QueBert has probably endured 4 coronary events while reading this thread from the shadows.

 

[Kaido]

DUDE!!! THAT ISN'T CHILI!!! For the last time Chili Peppers are what gives Chili Con Carne it's name. And there is nothing odd at all about this.

I admit it, I am a heretic! I usually just use a chili powder, not actual whole chilis. It's pretty easy to make:

Homemade Chili Powder

Homemade Chili Powder is easy to make with spices you likely already have in your pantry. It's the perfect addition to soups, stews and casseroles!

www.spendwithpennies.com

That mix uses ground paprika & cayenne powders for the chilis. Although I've made chili without any chili peppers successfully, but I get strictly speaking, that would be classified as a stew, as some type of chili pepper (whole or ground) should really be an ingredient...technically (surprisingly, no one has ever complained!). I experiment a lot, but I'd say paprika (as a spice powder) is consistently a core ingredient in my pots of chili.

By odd, I meant that the discussion always focuses on meat vs. beans, rather than types & styles of chili peppers, of which there are...many:

Chili Pepper Types - A List of Chili Peppers and their Heat Levels - Chili Pepper Madness

There are numerous types of chili peppers in the world. Here is a list of chili pepper types along with heat levels, descriptions and more. Please browse our large selection of the world's types of chili peppers categorized by heat level or listed alphabetically.

www.chilipeppermadness.com

On a tangent, this article has a fun history of chili peppers:

A Brief History of Chili Peppers from 6,100 Year Ago to Today

Ever wondered where chili peppers come from? This post traces the history of chili peppers from the Americas to the rest of the world.

www.legalnomads.com

 

[zinfamous]

It takes maybe 5-10 minutes to make proper chili seasoning from proper dried chilis, whole spices, toasted, mortered, and blended. I can't think of a reason for making a stock of powder that just sits around and goes bad hour by hour, to be used later.

 

[Kaido]

You forgot ATOT chili: meat, beans, tofu, no beans, hot dogs, pineapple, kiwi, clams, Froot Loops, and Chicago deep dish pizza.

brb off to invent dessert chili

I saw a chili recipe recently that had raisins in it. It sounded gross, but then I thought...maybe the chew & the slight sweetness would actually be kinda...good? I haven't been brave enough to try it yet tho lol.

 

[Perknose]

That mix uses ground paprika & cayenne powders for the chilis.

^^^ Two of my most favorite powders, along with garlic powder, onion powder and cumin powder.

I "cheat" with powders all the damn time.

 

[Perknose]

I can't think of a reason for making a stock of powder that just sits around and goes bad hour by hour, to be used later.

Doesn't "go bad," just loses some strength, and, if properly insulated from demon air and light, slowly at that.

Slightly less potent powder? USE MOAR!

 

[Kaido]

It takes maybe 5-10 minutes to make proper chili seasoning from proper dried chilis, whole spices, toasted, mortered, and blended. I can't think of a reason for making a stock of powder that just sits around and goes bad hour by hour, to be used later.

I use powder out of convenience, but dehydrated/toasted + mortared is really the way to go. Good article here on choosing a mortar & pestle:

I Tested 13 Mortar and Pestle Sets to Find the Best Ones for Spices, Pesto, and Curry Pastes

We tested 13 granite and marble mortar and pestle sets, molcajetes, and suribachi to find the four best sets that were sturdy, effective, and easy to use.

www.seriouseats.com

It was one of those tools I avoided for a long time because I didn't see the point, since I already had a blender & food processor, but I read some article somewhere that convinced me to try one because of how it releases the flavors, scents, oils, etc. from the spices, and by golly, it was a good investment! I've since invested in a dehydrator (and later switched to a Breville Air) & a Krups grinder for powderizing stuff. The workflow & options are surprisingly easy:

1. I use the dehydrator feature overnight
2. I can grind stuff into a powder with the Krups
3. I can toast stuff (fresh or dehydrated)
4. I can pan-fry the spices before cooking, which also does wonders

I still uses spices though, just because it's easy to have them on-hand all the time with zero effort lol.

 

[Kaido]

^^^ Two of my most favorite powders, along with garlic powder, onion powder and cumin powder.

I have a few posts on spices here: (edit: arg, why doesn't removing the media format disable the preview??)

https://www.reddit.com/r/kaidomac/comments/esf9tc

And here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/instantpot/comments/c7boii/_/et9forv

I am nowhere near where I'd like to be proficiency-wise when it comes to spices, but after taking a spice class that one of my chef buddies taught, I got hooked - it's why Columbus came over here in the first place, and is one of the things that makes food taste absolutely amazing, at least when you do it & get it right. Although while I do use special tools like a dehydrator, I mostly have a bunch of dried spices & spice mixes because it's just more convenient, haha!

 

[whm1974]

Doesn't "go bad," just loses some strength, and, if properly insulated from demon air and light, slowly at that.

Slightly less potent powder? USE MOAR!

I've known people that made their Chili Powder and they always store their homemade powders in their freezers. A few of them even grew their own peppers and dried them.

 

[zinfamous]

Doesn't "go bad," just loses some strength, and, if properly insulated from demon air and light, slowly at that.

Slightly less potent powder? USE MOAR!

but then it tastes and feels even MOAR powdery!

 

[balloonshark]

I admit to adding a can of drained green beans to my chili because I only had one can of kidney beans. It tasted fine the next day.

I also prefer some sort of tomato in my chili. It just goes better with hot sauce.

 

[WelshBloke]

END OF THREAD

Well that's the most optimistic thing I've seen on the internet recently! 😀

 

[JEDIYoda]

I've been making a pot a week for a couple months now, in my Instant Pot. Notes:

1. Bacon is my #1 must-have ingredient. 8 slices of bacon, chopped with scissors, sauteed in the Instant Pot until crispy. The bacon itself isn't important; the fat is, because of the flavor it adds. I tested this by making a baconless-batch & then adding in the bacon fat I save from making bacon. HUGE umami boost!

2. I like chunks of meat. At the moment, I've been doing sous-vide steak & cubing that up. On my list is to try a 36-hour SV chuck roast to (1) get more chunks, and (2) reduce cost, because an 8oz NY Strip is like $8 & doesn't give you nearly as many chunks as I want.

3. I find that I do like darker flavors - soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, fish sauce (Red Boat!), cocoa powder, etc. Trader Joe's mushroom umami powder is also pretty good. I'm not anti-MSG either; it's on the list of things to try in the future. I usually use a broth or stock (chicken or beef); I have bouillon methods (pastes & cubes) on my list of things to mess around with in the future. I suspect I can boost up the beefy flavor with a concentrated bouillon cube.

4. I always add beans, but I don't care about the variety itself - I just get a mix. Sometimes I do like having larger beans in there to accent the smaller ones.

5. 18 minutes does just fine in the Instant Pot. I pre-brown the meat first. The IP tends to scorch things like dairy & tomato-based produces, so you kind of have to layer the ingredients in, then stir it afterwards.

6. I like smoked paprika. I do chili powder & a few other powders. Cumin sometimes. Been going through Flatiron's Peppers lately, which add a nice heat without taking over the overall flavor.

7. Chili Cheese Fritos are excellent with chili. I like cornbread as well, but haven't found the perfect recipe yet. I definitely like more cakey & honey-sweet cornbread than dry, mealy cornbread. For my meal-prep, I use Souper Cubes to freeze the chili into bricks & use a mini-loaf pan to make personal-sized cornbread cakes to dip into the chili. Shredded cheese, scallions, and sour cream are good toppings.

8. I am a proponent of tomatoes in chili. I usually do a salsa, plus a small can of tomato paste, and then usually a can of diced tomatoes with peppers in it. Sometimes I'll add a green salsa, or use fire-roasted tomatoes, or anything else I can find in the Spanish aisle, liked canned hot peppers. I think fresh peppers add quite a bit of flavor & sometimes do jalapenos or just poblanos (roast 'em first), but they're not a key ingredient for me. I've added cornstarch in the past to thicken the chili up via a slurry if it's too soup after cooking.

9. My goal is to create the Real Ultimate Chili this year. Which is a highly subjective thing, haha! My framework is: bacon (chopped & sauteed, for the fat), tender chunks of steak, ground beef, beans, and some type of pasty/chunk/liquidy tomatoes (I am to offend chili-lovers of all walks of life, haha). I have a solid foundation, but it's nowhere near where I want it. I don't quite know enough about the interactions of flavors to even know what I'm looking for quite yet, but I do know that it's not perfect yet, haha!

You also might try adding a pre-made container of fire roasted salsa to your chili....

 

[bfun_x1]

You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I think there are really 4 kinds of chilis:

1. Texas Red (meat only)
2. Yankee Chili (beans & meat)
3. Vegetarian (beans only, no meat)
4. The weird ones (like white bean & venison chili)

I think chili is more about the spirit of chili than a strict definition. The best chili I've ever had was from a hunter friend of mine - white bean & venison. It was definitely chili, not stew, not soup. So there's a certain character that chili has. I think heat can be optional, but some heat is a Best Practice. I've been making my chili lately with corn in it, which you think would turn it more into a stew, but nope, it's still definitely chili! I've also really enjoyed using Flatiron Peppers:

Flatiron Pepper Co

You'll never go back to red pepper flakes! Flatiron Pepper creates unique pepper flake blends that showcase a variety of peppers, such as Jalapeno, Habanero, Ghost Pepper, Chipotle, Hatch Green Chile, Ancho, Carolina Reaper, Moruga Scorpion, Scotch Bonnet, and many more.

www.flatironpepper.com

These give you heat, but don't make your entire pot of chili taste like burning - you get heat plus flavor, instead of only heat.

Don't forget pork chile verde.

 

[whm1974]

I'm of the opinion that tomatoes either fresh, canned or paste doesn't even belong in chili at all since they tend to make the dish into soup instead of a proper stew.

If the spoon doesn't stand straight up in a bowl of chili then it isn't a proper chili now is it?

 

[sdifox]

I'm of the opinion that tomatoes either fresh, canned or paste doesn't even belong in chili at all since they tend to make the dish into soup instead of a proper stew.

If the spoon doesn't stand straight up in a bowl of chili then it isn't a proper chili now is it?

You put in tomatoes, you reduce the same volume of water.

 

[whm1974]

You put in tomatoes, you reduce the same volume of water.

Or not put in in the first place. Same thing with sour cream. That should be used in make a dip.

 

[nakedfrog]

You put in tomatoes, you reduce the same volume of water.

What is this sorcery?!?

 

[zinfamous]

I use powder out of convenience, but dehydrated/toasted + mortared is really the way to go. Good article here on choosing a mortar & pestle:

I Tested 13 Mortar and Pestle Sets to Find the Best Ones for Spices, Pesto, and Curry Pastes

We tested 13 granite and marble mortar and pestle sets, molcajetes, and suribachi to find the four best sets that were sturdy, effective, and easy to use.

www.seriouseats.com

It was one of those tools I avoided for a long time because I didn't see the point, since I already had a blender & food processor, but I read some article somewhere that convinced me to try one because of how it releases the flavors, scents, oils, etc. from the spices, and by golly, it was a good investment! I've since invested in a dehydrator (and later switched to a Breville Air) & a Krups grinder for powderizing stuff. The workflow & options are surprisingly easy:

1. I use the dehydrator feature overnight
2. I can grind stuff into a powder with the Krups
3. I can toast stuff (fresh or dehydrated)
4. I can pan-fry the spices before cooking, which also does wonders

I still uses spices though, just because it's easy to have them on-hand all the time with zero effort lol.

yeah, it's no different from why you use a burr grinder vs slicer mill thingy for your coffee beans. Don't use the slicer mill thingy, ever.

If I'm making a rub for big pieces of BBQ meat, though, I will use the spice blade slicer thingy for making those big batches of rub. I don't think the many nuances of those spices are really going to have an appreciable impact (difference between crushing and slicing your spices) if that meat has been smoked all day.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm of the opinion that tomatoes either fresh, canned or paste doesn't even belong in chili at all since they tend to make the dish into soup instead of a proper stew.

If the spoon doesn't stand straight up in a bowl of chili then it isn't a proper chili now is it?

you haven't properly cooked your chili if adding proper tomatoes results in a dish that can't post a spoon.

 

[zinfamous]

What is this sorcery?!?

I don't think it's 1:1, but yeah--reduce water added if you are adding tomatoes.

....also, don't add water. Add stock.