Classic Chili Con Carne Recipe (2024)

Here's how to make the entire recipe easier: Skip steps 1-3. Start with the bacon then brown the meat and do the onions (add one diced jalepeno pepper). Once you're ready for step 6/7, use a teaspoon or so of regular cumin and 1-2 tablespoons of regular chili powder. Maybe add a teaspoon of ancho chili powder if you have it. Simmer for 1 hour or so and boil off liquid for 1/2 hr. Serve over rice. AWESOME!!! Similar recipe, fewer steps, easier to make.

Doug, it is usually beef. In the past very few years the availability of farm-raised buffalo has increased its popularity. As to the recipe, it's fairly spot-on for a standard Texas chili. However, most folks I know use coarse-ground beef; all that meat cutting is a pain to more than the bison's butt.

This may be the best chili I've had. I used 2lbs lean ground beef instead of the cubed chuck, used toasted ground cumin instead of the whole cumin, and replaced the two anchos that go into the chili with one dried scotch bonnet pepper (which I removed near the end of cooking before it had broken open). To the finished product I added about three or four cups of cooked kidney beans. Absolutely perfect, and it freezes very well.

This was absolutely superb. I used the cubed chuck, spices etc listed. I add a little additional chipotle chili powder and some ancho chili poweder to kick the heat up a bit. Easily the best chili I have ever made and this will become th base for any other experimenting I might do. A great depth of flavor . Just what chili should be.

With a single deviation, we followed the recipe to a T, and we loved its rich, deep flavor. Here's the tweak: At Step 7, once all the ingredients were added, we put the covered Dutch oven in the oven at 300 degrees for about three hours, stirring every half hour or so. The result was uncommonly silky, and it required a lot less attention than stovetop cooking.

About those 1/4 inch cubes--they're really easy to do if you partially freeze the meat, then cut it into 1/4-inch slices. Stack them up and cross-slice into dice. The freezing keeps the meat from sliding around on you. If you have a hard-frozen chunk of meat, you might find a butcher who will slice it for you with a frozen food saw....

Add the chili mix in stages, never all at once. This recipe is too light on salt which should be added early ultimately requiring less overall. Experiment. Try pork belly rather than bacon. Beef short ribs are amazing too. Try dark chocolate and/or strong coffee. True Texas chili is about depth of flavor not heat. Have chopped fresh jalapeño or serrano, rice, beans, Fritos, onions, salsa, cheddar, cilantro available to add to the bowls if wanted. Chili is a very personal thing around here.

Just finished making this, now it is simmering for 2 hours. My husband and daughter came down once already drawn by the smells. It was a lot of work to make the spices and cut all that meat, but I was freaking about the pandemic, and this completely took my mind off of everything except this dish. For that alone, I am forever grateful.

The anchos at the end are confusing. I looked up the recipe on another site and sounds like your supposed to add two dried anchos while it simmers and then blend them at the end. I at first thought they wanted you to use two poblanos but that isn't the case.

Just about perfect. But, I strongly recommend some guajillo and a little chipotle chiles. The guajillo gives an amazing fruity, and bright flavor to balance out the one-note ancho. And the chipotle is, well, chipotle.

So So good. I can't eat beans anymore and I did't miss them. I have chili powder that I get in Mexico so I used that as part of the chili powder recipe and then added the oregano, ground cumin and garlic powder to it to make 3 1/2 tbsp. I didn't add the chili at the end, I didn't want it to be an hotter. I did add 3 oz dark chocolate to it. Served it over rice. Next time I will double the batch. Doug - I cut the meat into 1/4 inch cubes, became tender while it simmered.

I used brisket the first time, coarse ground chuck (w/ no bacon) the second time. Both were spectacular. I added 3 jalapenos with the onions, used .5T grd coriander seeds with 1.5T grd cumin seeds for the chili, smoked paprika, and splashed in about 1C beer before putting the meat back in. Overall used a little less liquid than called for. Added beans (I'm a third-generation Texan, so I can). And I'm never buying chili powder again!

I used brisket and cut it into approx. 1" chunks, some a little larger, some smaller. It came out tender as can be.

It sound like your chili is a new recipe, I guess I don't change the recipe up until I have tried the original recipe.

Really best chili I have ever had. The chili powder was great and I will keep it in pantry. Followed recipe except no fresh ancho peppersPut whole jalapeno and pablano pepper in and cooked whole time. Used stew meat cut into smaller pieces and simmered on very low for much longer. Not at all greasy.

I made this for the first time yesterday for game night, multiplying the recipe by 1.5 to feed the group (so, 4.5 lbs of beef). It took me TWO HOURS to cut the meat into 1/4 INCH pieces. Is there a faster way to do this?? What am I missing? Otherwise, the recipe was very good and it was a hit.

Anchos give great flavor and a slow burn. And the bacon is really good. I think I would borrow those elements and lend them to the Texas Chili recipe, also from Robb Walsh. I prefer the chili with the beans, ultimately.I did not cut beef into quarter-inch dice; I agree with one of the reviewers that that sounds like too much work. So instead I used a chili grind of chuck. Did not use my own roasted anchos for the chile powder since I had some ancho powder on hand already.

I gave myself some pretty good food poisoning with this one. It tasted great going down, less so coming back up -- but not terrible!

Ugh... Whoa! Followed the directions to a T. I really thought the flavor was bomb, it smelled incredible also. To me this seemed like a ragu more than a chili. $28.00 for a 3 lb chuck roast and after 6 hours in a Dutch oven at 300 it was still tough and pretty much inedible. So, I don't get how everyone is coming out with such rave results. I think Id try this again with ground meat though because the I did love the flavor.

How does it get so juiced up? My meat was in too large of hunks and I had to blend some of the vegetables to make the sauce thicker. Maybe I shouldn’t buy grass fed since it seems drier?

Used pre-cut Chuck. Did not cut smaller. Was ok. Used powdered spices other than the toasted and crushed cumin seeds. Puréed fir-roasted canned tomatoes. Added a jalapeño. Was super good!

how the heck do you cut beef into 1/4 inch cubes?

Good recipe but way too sweet. Next time I make it, I'll have the amount of brown sugar.

Do 1 onion and 1 green pepperAdd red kidneys at the end

I buy ancho Powder from the Santa Cruz store when I’m in southern Arizona. It’s fairly hot, so I used it for the initial chill powder and skipped the added anchos at the end. Cut the beef into cubes the night before and refrigerated them—made the cooking process less arduous. I puréed a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes as I didn’t have purée on hand.

This is fantastic- we made exactly as written. Wonderful!!

Made this recipe and I must say it has a lot of potential. One change… decrease the amount of cumin added. Personally, I think it only needs about a third ( or even less) of the amount stated. Otherwise the flavor is supremely overwhelming.

Right up front I’ll say this is insanely fantastic! No hyperbole here. I followed the recipe exactly- AFTER I FIGURED OUT SOMETHING! And that is that extremely common problem with recipes involving chiles, dried or fresh. No one explains that when a Chile is dried it changes its name! A fresh poblano is a dried ANCHO. That is not clearly stated here at all. A fresh jalapeño is a dried chipotle. A fresh chilaca is a dried pasilla. A fresh Anaheim is a dried Colorado. Dios mio!

I skipped the first two steps and used prepackaged chili powder. I trimmed the copious fat and gristle from the boneless chuck and chopped it pretty close to 1/4 inch. I thumbed my nose at Texas shibboleths and threw in a couple of cans of kidney beans midway through the simmer. Result was deeply flavorful and a big hit at a family gathering. The chuck was a major upgrade over ground beef.