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.
Award 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).
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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.
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
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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!
Israel Juarez
Eddie,
Thank you for sharing your recipe. I made it for 4th of July for family and friends and it was gone, gone. Needless to say, some friends had never had this type of chili. I did it in a crockpot over night.
Eddie
Hi Israel,
The crockpot overnight sounds like a genius move to me. So glad you and your friends enjoyed this recipe!
Alec Younger
I won a little group Chili Cookoff. Thanks for the recipe. I just didn’t add beans but followed it otherwise
Yvette
Thanks Eddie this recipe is outstanding . I usually don't make chili , but I wanted to submit an entry to the neighborhood chili cook off. Not sure if I'll win. But I hit it out of the ballpark with my family. I made a couple of tweaks.I used black beans and ground Turkey instead of chuck.
Eddie
Hi Yvette,
Thanks so much for coming back to let me know. Best of luck for the contest and please let me know if you take home first prize!
Jeff
I made this chilli last fall and took it to a contest at my camp there was approximately 14 entries all together this recipe won unanimously I was so happy because there was some heavy hitters in the contest thanks
Eddie
Hi Jeff - thanks so much for coming back to let me know about your near unanimous contest win! Hopefully you can repeat this coming fall.
Timmy Hatch
I have made this chili multiple times, including for two cook offs at the church. It was been the favorite as judged by a panel the first time and the people’s choice this year. The tangy acidic flavor is a crowd pleaser and some vinegar gives even more of a pungent flavor if needed. This is great same day and wonderful after having rested for a day or more. This is also great when using bison or elk meat.
Eddie
Hi Timmy,
Thanks so much for the feedback, Glad to hear this recipe won first prize at your church. I have tried mixing in some bison and it worked out very well indeed!
Eddie
Mary
Have to give you a big thank you! Favorite chili recipe! I make my Dad’s easy chili all the time …well cuz it’s my Dad’s recipe. But when I go “gourmet” — I make your chili. It’s the chili I take camping with us! And, it’s such a treat to sit and enjoy a bowl of this chili with some crusty sourdough bread or warm buttered tortillas sitting at camp! Thank you for sharing! Mary
Eddie
Hi Mary,
Thanks so much for coming back to let me know how much you've been enjoying this chili. I can totally picture it on a camping trip. We once took it to go ice (smelt) fishing and it was a great, warming consolation when we caught not one fish!
Eddie
Gregory F. Durante Sr.
Love, love, loved it. Next time I'll make a few mods (not that as is isn't just fine, just my 2 cents). Thank you
Eddie
Gregory,
Thanks so much for coming to leave a comment and a five-star rating. I get it about the mods and don't take it personally. Go make it your own!
Eddie
Laurie Baker
This is the best award winning chili recipe I've ever seen and it's so easy to make.
Erica
I have made this recipe (with some modifications) twice now for my husband's work chili cook offs. He has won both times. We made so much this last time and he still won by a long shot.
Eddie
Erica,
Thanks for letting me know - that's so good to hear! I actually keep track of how many commenters report back on their chili contest wins and I am going to have to count this as a double! Plus by a long shot!
Beth Davis
Made this tonight for dinner. I'm trying recipes to enter into a chili cookoff in my small town. I made a few alterations, but all in all, this was delicious! It's very different from any regular chili I've ever tried. I love it! Thanks for sharing this recipe.
Eddie
Hey Beth,
Thanks for letting me know. I hope you entered some version of this recipe into your contest. If so would love to hear how you fared!
Ciara
Won at my company's chili cook-off with this recipe today! Followed it almost exactly with only a couple minor adjustments. Everyone loved it, thanks for the share!
Eddie
Hi Ciara,
So great to hear from you. What a great feeling it is to win a chili competition! Especially at the office against co-workers. You get to walk around for a year with that extra bounce in your step. Thanks for coming back to leave a comment.
Rick Brown
I made the recipe with a few alternatives. I used leftover brisket instead of cubed Chuck. I also couldn’t get Anaheim peppers so used all poblano. I couldn’t find hot paprika so used regular and added Crystal Hot Sauce. I also added 2 cans of diced tomatoes and a can of black beans. So 4 meats, 3 beans! I’m quite pleased with the results. I also added an extra half tablespoon of each of the three chili powders.
Eddie
Hey Rick,
Thanks so much for the comment. Leftover brisket sounds amazing for a chili. In fact, I really like all your modifications. I like a little extra heat but it's not for everyone. Thanks again.
Kurt
Just won a neighborhood chili cook off with this recipe. Many compliments from our friends. Didn’t change anything. Will definitely keep this one for future use!
Eddie
Hey Kurt - congratulations on your chili cook-off victory! So glad this recipe worked for you. Also, thanks for coming back to leave a comment.
Bianca
I have been making this chili for a while now. I have even started canning the tomatoes and pinto beans that I put in it! I use my own canned 32 hour beef bone broth instead of chicken broth and the depth of flavor really shines through. Of course I put my own twist of spices too. Won a small cook off with my family and will be entering one at church!
Eddie
Hi Bianca - thanks so much for coming back to leave a comment and a star rating. I am adding you to my special list of chili cook-off winners! At some point in the near future I am going to announce a milestone.
Brandi
I’m curious if I could add this to a crockpot after it’s all browned up and let it cook on low all day? How do you think that would make it taste?
Terri
Can't wait to try this! But I'm wondering if I could decrease the beans by half and still preserve the flavor? Thanks!
Eddie
Hi Terri - you can definitely take the beans down by half. You will be fine. Enjoy!
Marty
Wow! Enjoyed this a lot! I liked the suggestion of adding multiple types of chili powders!
Great recipe!
Eddie
Hi Marty,
Happy new year! Thanks so much for coming back to leave a rating and a comment. I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe. It's such a hearty winter meal. As I told Darin, my wife gets the credit for diversifying on the chili powders.
David
This is the closest to what I do. Although I have issues with a few ingredients. Why use two diced onions and call for granulated onions? Beef is Beef. Two hours in a simmer and let's see if you can tell the difference.
David Parker
This was actually good ... damn good. Every ingredient seems to complement the final result. I was skeptical of some ingredients but I whole heartedly recommend this recipe.
Joseph Rabor
Hi, diced onions and granulated onions offer different flavor profiles. Beef on different parts of the cow offers different flavors as well as textures.
Darin
Best chili I've ever tasted. Wow. Wonderful depth of flavor, thanks! Great idea to vary the types of chili powder. I used regular chili powder as well as ancho. Easy recipe to adjust the hotness.
Eddie
Hi Darin,
Thanks so much for coming back to leave a comment and a five star rating! I am so glad you enjoyed this chili so much. Using three different chili powders was my wife's idea, so she gets the credit on that call. I agree it makes a huge difference.