This chili recipe has been a huge hit since we first shared it. We've been blown away by all the positive feedback and love hearing about your chili cook-off wins!
Hi, this is Lisa's husband Eddie, guest blogging my award winning chili recipe based on popular demand (mostly from my wife).
I'll never forget the first chili cook-off I ever attended. It was an office event and it hadn't even occurred to me to submit my own entry. There were about a dozen chilis to choose from ranging from incredible to inedible (the latter being heat related - it was called "The Five Alarmer" and it passed its time at the cook-off largely undisturbed).
The ultimate winner, whose chili I had voted for, was a young woman just starting her career. I was an executive at the time, which I mention only to emphasize how awkward it was when I asked her if she would share her recipe with me and she just looked at me and shook her head. I suddenly understood the competitiveness involved in these things - there would be another chili cook-off at some point and she wasn't giving away any secrets. Thus began my personal quest to win a chili contest!
Quest for the best chili
I tried a number of different approaches in the following years, including a purist Texas style chili that shunned beans and ground beef in favor of unadorned hunks of stew meat simmered in what I thought was an excellent balance of chiles and spices. “Delicious”, someone told me after I placed third, “but it’s not really chili”.
The award winning chili had beans in it. And I had to admit it was much better than mine, in part because it had three different kinds of meat in it, including sausage.
Determined to come up with an award winning chili recipe, I narrowed my sights to multiple-meat chilis and came upon Guy Fieri’s Dragon Breath chili, which is the recipe I’m adapting here.
The winning chili recipe
This chili contains chuck meat, Italian pork sausage and ground beef plus three different kinds of peppers (poblano, Anaheim and jalapeño) which results in excellent flavor, texture and heat. And my version has a little something extra! Fieri‘s recipe calls for either bacon grease or canola oil to sauté the aromatics. Easy choice I thought, but it’s not as if you can buy bacon grease so I got a 12-oz package of bacon, cut it into small pieces and rendered the fat myself. It produced just about the right amount of fat, but also an interesting byproduct. As I looked at those cooked bits of bacon I thought “who am I kidding? Those are going into my chili!”
Also Lisa advised that I use three different kinds of chili powder to add a depth of flavor to match up against the three (now four actually) kinds of meat and three types of chili pepper. Finally, my taste in beer steered me toward an IPA rather than the lager suggested by the original recipe.
Aside from those differences and the fact that I brown the meat separately instead of in with the sautéed vegetables, the credit goes to Fieri for an amazing recipe, especially his use of spices which generates a level of heat that is just on the edge, which in my view is where a chili should be.
My chili won two cook-offs outright including one against Dean’s award winning white chicken chili.
It also took best meat chili in a third competition (lost to a vegetarian in the all-around that year) and came in a very close second to Dean’s white chicken chili in another cook-off that was heartbreaking for me.
Against a field of roughly 20 chilis and with hundreds of votes tallied, Dean and I were counted up exactly even to tie for the win and the medal was awarded jointly to us. In what has since become known as Chili-gate, I later that day discovered that unlike the previous competition, the cooks were not allowed to vote. I conceded that I had in fact voted and presented sole ownership of the blue ribbon to Dean. I kidded him that my vote was for his chili (it wasn’t).
Here's how to make Eddie's Award Winning Chili:
This chili takes time to prepare and involves numerous ingredients, but it's totally worth it and the basics are straightforward.
Want To Save this Recipe?
Share your email and we'll send it straight to your inbox!
Start by roasting, peeling, seeding and chopping the chiles. Keep a close eye on them while they are roasting - things can escalate quickly.
Peel off the skin. Use a small knife to scrape the seeds out. Then dice the flesh.
In the meantime, while the chilies are in the oven, cut up and fry down the bacon to provide the grease to use for sautéing (and the bacon itself!). You then sauté the chiles and vegetables in the bacon fat, remove them and brown the meat in the same pot.
Then add the spices, the tomato sauce and paste, chicken broth and beer and simmer for two hours.
Lisa asked me to advise you that if you want to be a little healthier you can skim the fat off the surface periodically which, in my opinion, for this dish is sort of like saying that if you want to be a little safer when you go cliff diving, wear knee pads. But anyway consider it mentioned.
No skimming was involved when I took first place in the cook-offs. And if you really want a healthy chili option, try this vegetarian chili or this Turkey Chili.
I also want to say that it is great to have a sous chef alongside when you prepare this chili, preferably Lisa.
One final note: for my taste the heat level is perfect, but if you want to tone it down, the best way is by reducing the amount of cayenne pepper.
Some of your questions answered
Over the years, we have gotten lots of questions from our readers, in the comments. Here are the answers to a few of the most frequently asked questions:
If the concern is alcohol, you can use a non-alcoholic beer. There are even non-alcoholic IPAs. If the concern is gluten, you can use a gluten-free beer. Whatever the reason is, if you don't want to use beer at all, you can substitute an equal amount of chicken stock.
We have had this issue and have doubled up on the poblano peppers, with great success!
Yes absolutely. Just make sure you turn the crockpot on high heat for a bit to be sure the chili gets up to temp. Then, once it's hot you can put it on the "warm" setting.
Cut the cayenne in half or eliminate it completely. Cayenne doesn't add much in the way of flavor but it does add a substantial amount of heat. Also, be sure to remove all the seeds and white pith from the jalapeños. For an even milder chili, stick to a mild chili powder, such as ancho or Mexican Guajillo Chili Powder.
Here's my award winning chili recipe. If you make this please come back to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
PrintRecipe
Eddie's Award Winning Chili
- Total Time: 3 hours 45 mins
- Yield: 10-12 servings 1x
Description
A fantastic award winning chili con carne with a robust meaty flavor, the perfect amount of heat, beef, pork, beans, fresh chile peppers, awesome spices, onions, garlic, tomatoes and beer.
Ingredients
- 3 Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, chopped
- 3 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, chopped
- 12 ounces of bacon, cut crosswise into ¼-inch strips and sautéed until almost crisp. Reserve 3 tablespoons of bacon fat.
- 3 tablespoons bacon fat (rendered from the bacon)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (canola, grape seed or your favorite)
- 2 red bell peppers, seeds and ribs removed, diced
- 2 jalapeño peppers, seeds and ribs removed, minced
- 2 yellow onions, peeled and diced
- 1 head garlic, peeled and minced (10-12 garlic cloves, 6 tablespoons minced garlic)
- 1 pound boneless beef chuck, trimmed of fat and gristle, cut into ½-inch cubes
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
- 3 tablespoons chili powder (Try using 3 different chili powders for great depth of flavor - I use ancho, chipotle and Mexican)
- 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (Half this amount for less heat)
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons granulated garlic
- 2 teaspoons granulated onion
- 2 teaspoons hot paprika (not smoked)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- 2 cups tomato sauce (passata, not ketchup for those in the UK)
- 8 ounces tomato paste
- 12 ounces of your favorite beer (I use an IPA because I like the hoppy flavor)
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 15-ounce cans kidney beans, with juice
- 2 15-ounce cans pinto beans, with juice
- Optional Garnishes:
- 1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced or 1 red onion, finely chopped
- Shredded cheddar cheese or Monterey Jack
- Sour cream
Want To Save this Recipe?
Share your email and we'll send it straight to your inbox!
Instructions
- To Roast the Chilies, Preheat the oven to broil (500ºF) Set an oven rack at the top, directly under the broiler. Spread the chiles out on a low-sided oven tray and roast for 15-20 minutes, turning peppers with tongs every five minutes, until their skins are about 60-70% blackened on all sides. Put the hot peppers directly into a paper bag. Roll down the top of the bag so they're tightly contained. Let them sit and steam for 15-20 minutes until the skins are loosened and easy to peel off. Peel off skins, remove seeds and membranes, and chop.
- To Sauté Chilis and Aromatics, add the bacon grease and oil to a large heavy pot or Dutch oven (6-quart), over medium-high heat. Add the chopped chiles, red bell peppers, jalapeño peppers and onions. Cook for 5 minutes or until the vegetables just start to become translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Transfer all the sautéed vegetables to a bowl and set aside. No need to wash the pot, you'll use it to brown the meat.
- To Brown the Meats, add the cubed beef chuck to the pot and cook, stirring often, until lightly browned on all sides, about 4 minutes. Add the ground beef and sausage and cook for 7-10 minutes, stirring to break up the sausage and ground beef, until the meat is no longer pink. Return the cooked vegetables to the pot along with the reserved bacon.
- Add Spices: chili powders, cayenne, coriander, cumin, granulated garlic, granulated onion, paprika, salt and black pepper. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute, until fragrant.
- Add the Rest of the Ingredients: Add the tomato sauce and paste. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes, to combine. Add beer, chicken stock, kidney beans with their liquid and pinto beans with their liquid. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, and cook for 2 hours, uncovered, stirring occasionally.
- To Serve, ladle chili into bowls. Top with garnishes or put garnishes into small bowls for self serve.
Notes
Should you drain and rinse the beans? In my experience draining and rinsing the beans is not required. If you're someone who feels otherwise, by all means drain and rinse - the outcome will still be terrific!
- Prep Time: 1 hour 45 mins
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: simmer
- Cuisine: Tex-Mex
This recipe post was first published on October 23, 2017. It has been updated with new photos to show the cooking steps, a video so you can watch how to make it, and an added FAQ section that answer some of the most frequently asked questions from our followers. We haven't touched the recipe because, by all accounts, it's great just the way it is!
Patti
I have looked and tried many many recipes for chili, some copycat recipes and many others. This by far had a full robust flavor and finally my husband said, yes this is allllllrightttttt!
Going to try this in our Halloween block party Chili cook off! Let's see how it does!
Eddie
Hi Patti - thanks so much for coming back to leave a comment and a five star rating! Good luck with the Halloween cookoff. Let me know how you do!
Jonathan
Won first place with this chili today at our annual church chili cook off in Virginia Beach. Could not find Anaheim peppers so I used poblanos and cubanelle for the roasted peppers and a Warsteiner Pilsner for the beer. Thanks for sharing your awesome recipe!
Eddie
Hey Jonathan - congratulations on taking first prize with this recipe at your church cook off and thanks for coming back to let me know! Made my day.
Barney
I too won first place two weeks ago with this recipe. Only thing different was I added my own dehydrated onion's late in the cooking process. Really made flavor pop. Great job Eddie!
Mike
Hey Eddie!
I'm planning on making this for an office chili cookoff. I'm from Ohio and don't know if I'll be able to find Anaheim chilies. What would you suggest as a substitute to those if I am unable to find them? Also have you tried this recipe with other beers?
Thanks!
Eddie
Hi Mike - I have run into that problem before and found that the Anaheims can be replaced with more poblanos. I have not personally tried this recipe with other beers but one or two commenters have done this as I recall (one used Guinness I am fairly sure). I find an IPA works well, but I am sure a lager would be fine, and possibly a stout or porter if that's your taste. Let me know how you go.
Michael
Hello there!
I didn't win the cookoff but I did get second place (I think it was rigged lol). This chili definitely tasted better then the chili that won. I ended up using some different spices because I only had smoked paprika and roasted coriander instead of the spices listed but it's still the best chili i've ever made! As a quick note it did taste a bit acidic towards the end of cooking so I added about a teaspoon of baking soda in little bits and it made the acidity much more manageable. Overall this is a great recipe and one I will be making again (as soon as I get through all these leftovers). Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!
Peter
made this for the fourth or fifth time today (it is THAT good!), so first of all: thank you for this great recipe!
i noticed that the page changed a little bit and there's also a option to use metric quantities. that's great!
but as i had already converted everything to normal units 😉 i noticed that the quantities for the beans changed... (also in "us" units as i noticed comparing with other "eddie's award winning chili" in the word wide web).
not i says 2 30 ounce cans [beans] but my excel file says 2 15 ounce cans (totaling 30 ounce). i went with the 2 15 ounce cans again and think that's perfect. maybe there went something wrong when re-entering the recipe?
anyway, thank again for this great recipe, i'll try the white chicken chili next!
Eddie
Hi Peter - thanks very much for bringing this to our attention. You are absolutely right, there is some sort of bug in the plug-in that is first doubling the amount in metrics and then bizarrely retaining that ratio when you convert back to US (normal) causing that too to double. The correct recipe amount is 2 15 oz cans of each type of bean, as you say. We have notified tech support to advise them of this issue and will in the meantime try to find a workaround to ensure no one else has this issue.
Pat
Planning to make this and was wondering if instead of the 4 cans of beans, I substituted 1 of the kidneys and 1 of the pintos for a can of black and a can of sweet corn. I wanted to go for a southwest feel and add some sweet to the heat without sugar and hoping the corn would accomplish this. I’d be happy to hear other people’s thoughts.
Eddie
Hi Pat - my apologies for not responding sooner. I absolutely support your choices around those substitutions. Please come back and let us know how you make out.
Cindy
I decided to try this chili bc my dads name was Eddie and since I lost him a few years back I figured anything with Eddie in the name had to be good. Boy o boy!! It’s not just good it’s amazing! Each Saturday I make a different chili during college football season. Some have been fails but most are just average but then I made your recipe. Oh my goodness!!! It is definitely the best by far! It’s exactly what chili should taste like. I even used it at our office chili cook off and hands down it was a win by far. So thank you for the recipe and thank you for being named Eddie!!I
Eddie
Hi Cindy - well first of all congratulations on winning your office chili cook off. It's such a great feeling, no? I am sorry to hear you lost your Dad a few years ago - I am glad though that his name led you to a chili you enjoy so much, almost like he directed you to it! I really appreciate your coming back to leave a comment and a five star rating and sharing your story. I hope you will continue to make this recipe going forward and that it will bring you joy and future blue ribbons.
Ellen
Hi! I am going to attempt this chili for a cook off I am entering. When you say use the three chili powders…is the Mexican chili powder just the regular chili powder? I found a McCormicks hot chili powder but wanted to be sure it was considered the Mexican version. I also didn’t want to add extra heat to it. Thank you!
Eddie
Hi Ellen - that substitution should be fine. Spice is a personal thing - if you are at all worried about overheating, I would half the amount (or eliminate) the cayenne pepper, which really doesn't have any flavor other than heat.
Ellen
Hi Eddie! I made this for a chili contest this past weekend. 14 contestants and 90+ judges. I won first place!!!!! $700! Thank you for sharing your amazing recipe!!!
Brenda
Excited to use this recipe this week!
But have you tried to use a crock pot with this recipe??
Eddie
Hi Brenda, I have not tried doing this, but I don't see why it couldn't be done. I would highly recommend that you roast and peel the chilies in line with the recipe and something tells me you should brown the meat before putting it in the crock pot but everything else feels like it would work fine. Please check back in and let me know how it went.
Danny
It’s hot in Mississippi this summer and not a time of year for chili, but this recipe which I have made at least 6 times is calling my name. I brought fresh Delta tamales today in Greenville and they are begging for a bowl of chili. So, it is simmering as I type this review. This is my favorite chili recipe ever and we serve it every New Years at our bonfire. If you will stay pretty close to the recipe on this one you will have a winner every time. Sorry I waited so long to write a review on a dish that has brought joy to so many. Thanks, and Happy New Year in August from Mississippi.
Eddie
Hi Danny, it brings me joy to hear how much joy this chili has brought to you and your family. A New Year's bonfire sounds like an fantastic tradition and it is quite an honor to have this chili represented. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. You made my day!
Ben
I wimped out. I was going to get the dry beans but the week got busy and by Friday night I had no energy to soak and then boil beans so I went canned instead. Turned out brilliant! Thanks again for sharing.
A couple of interesting discoveries allng the way. Our friend's daughter is celiac so I had to make sure it was completely gluten free, as in not even in potential contact with gluten. The only things I had to watch for was the beer, sausage and beans.
Living in Canada, a brand of gluten free beer I found quite good is Glutenberg. Not a fan of most gf beer but this one is quite tasty and served the recipe well. It is made from corn.
The sweet sausage was a tricky one and I almost missed it. I went to the butcher and got a coil of sweet Italian, but as she was weighing it, I remembered to ask. Turns out their recipe for that sausage did have gluten. They assured me the mild Italian was gf though, and was processed in a gf environment, so I got that.
As for the beans, it wasn't hard to find gf versions of these. Most are. But some of the flavored types have gluten, and others are processed in a facility that processes gluten. All the same, it was difficult to find some without.
For Canadians, canned beans don't come in 15 fl.oz. cams, only 19 fl.oz. so I got 2 cans of kidney and 1 pinto.
Turned out great! Totally forgot the jalapeño but the roasted poblano and anaheim carried their weight.
I was a bit concerned about the spice level since some of our guests, especially the kids, are adverse to spice. But the heat was pleasant, not overpowering and certainly complimentary.
I should point out that I also used standard paprika and not hot.
Eddie
Ben - thanks for returning to let me know how things went. Wow - you had some extra work cut out for you making it gluten free. I am so glad the recipe worked out for you. And I got to learn about a gluten free beer called Glutenberg!
Ben
This sounds great and I'm eager to try. I'm not keen on canned beans though. Have you tried it with cooked dry beans? Any reason to go canned over cooked?
Eddie
Hi Ben - I have never tried to use cooked dry beans in this recipe. I have no reason to believe they wouldn't work just fine - you should be sure to adjust the salt to taste as canned beans have some level of sodium in them that you will forego with dried beans. Please let me know how this comes out.
Paul
Great recipe! Thanks for sharing!
I pinch the sausage meat into little chunks, put them in last, after the other meat is cooked, put the lid on and steam them for a few minutes. The result is little sausage meatballs in the chilli which I prefer to the sausage blending in with the minced meat.
Mark
Looks like a good recipe. Maybe you addressed this if the 50k word essay you wrote about the chili, but if you enter this chili in and International Chili Society contest with beans in it you'll be disqualified. No beans in Texas chili.
Eddie
Hi Mark - thanks for your comment. Actually there is a brief excerpt in my 50k word essay that refers to an earlier attempt of mine to avoid beans for the reasons you describe along with the ironic result (for context, I live in the Northeast). I am including this below so you don't have to read all 50k words!
* * * * *
I tried a number of different approaches in the following years, including a purist Texas style chili that shunned beans and ground beef in favor of unadorned hunks of stew meat simmered in what I thought was an excellent balance of chilies and spices. “Delicious”, someone told me after I placed third, “but it’s not really chili”. The award winning chili had beans in it.
Keith
Well, overall it was pretty good. It took me about 2.5 hours to cut and prep. But that's just me. I would say minus the bacon bits, they were very overpowering.
Marika
I used this recipe last year in a chili cook-off and took 2nd place, but I did three things differently.
I did not roast the Anaheim or Pablano, I put the cubed chuck in a seasoned flour base to sear the outside (which turned out perfect), and lastly I cooked it over several hours.
This year I’m planning to follow the recipe as is (except cooking time) and will see if that bumps me up!
Pam
Won 1st place with this recipe. Forgot the beer and didnt have all of the peppers that this recipe called for, but it was still very good.
Eddie
Congratulations Pam! I find that this recipe has so many different components that it can withstand a few substitutions and omissions.
Klondike John
Made this recipe and won the first annual " Super Dools" chili cook off in Peters Creek Alaska. Excellent flavor, texture, and just the right amount of finishing heat.
Brad In NOLA
I’ve never made chili before.I’ve never roasted peppers before, which was totally cool and brought flavors I couldn’t have imagined. I bought a cast iron Dutch oven and I followed your recipe pretty closely, with the exception that I added a half cup of whisky about fifteen minutes before removing it from the heat. Everyone raved, and The leftovers are amazing. Thank you!
Eddie
Hey Brad,
NOLA is such a great food place. I am glad you enjoyed this recipe. Roasting peppers makes you wonder why you would eat them any other way. Thanks so much for coming back to leave a comment and a 5 star rating!
Dina
Making this today for a super bowl chili cook-off. I’ll let you know how it does! My husband usually makes the chili but this recipe looked challenging and sounded like a winner.
Miss Fit
How did it go. How did you do with the recipe? I have a contest this weekend.!
Ryan
Cries in 5.5QT dutch oven
Veronica
Of course my Dutch Oven is 6.5 quarts. Should I just plan on using a bigger pot from the start? Or, should I risk it knowing that I will most likely either have an overflowing pot or will most likely need to transfer to another pot which I don't want to do? What I'm really asking is, will this recipe of loveliness fit in a 6.5 quart Dutch Oven?
Eddie
Hi Veronica,
I would say go for it! The one I use is 6.75 qts and it just about fits so you should be ok. Please come back to let us know how it goes. Good luck.