Chili Theory 101: How to Make The Best Chili Ever
Oh boy, here we go pissing off everyone again. We’re tackling chili and we’re Canadian. (Maybe the only people we’re going to offend are Texans 🤷♀️).
Much like our Mac and Cheese and Garlic Bread theory style-posts, for this post we cooked a lot of chili (more chili than any person should ever be consuming in such a short time) to figure out what makes the best chili. Then we nerded out and did some data analysis on 30 different chili recipes to determine what it is that makes a chili, well, a chili.
Big Ol’ Disclaimer: So the world of chili is vast. Beef chili? Chicken chili? White chili? In an effort to try to standardize ourselves, we focused on beef chili. That’s it. The meat needed to be beef, everything else was fair game.
Don’t want to read about the recipes we made while finding the best chili? Want to get straight to the chili insights? Click here to jump straight to the data.
Chili Recipes: From Budget to Bougie
Easy Weeknight Chili by Trevor’s Mom
What size of cans, Mom?
This is one of those recipes that no one is quite sure where it came from, and includes all sorts of shortcuts including canned pork and beans, canned mushrooms, canned…everything. The taste is actually pretty good, albeit it leans very heavy on the pork and beans for flavour. There’s not much to say here other than it is chili, and it tastes like home.
Worth It? Yes, if you want to make a comforting meal on a budget.
The Best Chili Recipe by Spend With Pennies
This recipe is an upgrade from the previous, but is nothing to write home about. We don’t really know what else to say, besides we don’t think just chili powder will cut it anymore when making chili. (Yes, there is also one jalapeno in here, but it’s definitely the bare minimum.) This chili won’t win you any awards. Using beer for some of your liquid is a nice touch though.
Worth It? Eh, it’s mid.
The Best Chili Recipe by Sugar Spun Run
Noticing a trend here? Everyone claims they have the best chili recipe, or that it’ll win you first place at your local chili cookoff.
We liked this one more than the previous chili. It was also the first time we put bacon in chili, and it won’t be the last. We didn’t have pre-ground ancho chili powder, but we did have some leftover dried ancho chilis so we ground some up ourselves. Using a chili powder that isn’t generic is a definite upgrade to Flavortown!
Worth It? Yes.
That deeper, darker red color is the sign of an A++ chili.
Kevin’s Famous Chili by Binging With Babish
Years ago we tried making this chili. It was the first time we had ever made chili with dried chili peppers as opposed to just using the typical North American chili powder that you can buy in a grocery store. The taste is earthy, beefy, complex, and was a major upgrade to the kinds of chili we had eaten growing up. The ingredients are relatively inexpensive, the recipe isn’t overly complex, and this chili is the easiest way to upgrade your chili game.
Worth It? Hell yes.
The Best Chili by Serious Eats
We decided that we wanted to make at least one chili together, because cooking is always more fun when it’s with friends, right? We found this recipe by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt that seemed to hit everything we would want in a test chili in addition to getting rave reviews from Reddit, where one user claimed it won them a chili competition.
So we decided to cook it, and boy were we in for a wild ride. This chili is expensive. It is possibly the most expensive blog post we have made thus far. It’s at least in the top 3, along with the time we experimented with truffles and our Thanksgiving feast post.
The biggest culprit? 5 lbs (2.3kg) of bone in beef short rib.
Five. Pounds.
Up here in Canada, we, on the day we made this, had to make a choice: do we support Galen Weston and Loblaws, or, do we support a local butcher shop? We opted to vote with our dollars, and went to a butcher shop near us. As a result, we ended up paying $95 CAD (~$70 USD) for the short ribs. We were happy to support a local business, but damn did that price ever hurt.
$$$$
The other culprits? The sheer volume of other niche ingredients that you need. In no particular order, to make this chili, the other ingredients that you’ll require are:
Bay leaves
Buffalo-style hot sauce, such as Frank's RedHot
Chopped unsweetened chocolate
Cider vinegar
Cloves garlic
Coffee beans
Dark brown sugar
Diamond Crystal kosher salt
Dried dark red kidney beans
Dried oregano
Fresh Thai bird chiles or jalapeño pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
Low-sodium chicken broth (preferably homemade)
Marmite
Soy sauce
Star anise
Tomato paste
Vegetable oil
Vodka or bourbon
Whole anchovy fillets
Whole ancho, pasilla, or mulato chiles
Whole cascabel, árbol, or pequin chile
Whole coriander seeds
Whole cumin seeds
Whole cloves
Whole New Mexico red, California, costeño, or choricero chiles
Yellow onion
Putting aside the tremendous cost of ingredients, the other major issue we have with this recipe is the time required. The cook time alone is on the order of 6 hours, and that’s not counting the bean soaking time.
Of course, most good chilis require a long simmer time to develop the flavor, but with the immense time and money investment, the result should be mind blowing.
Worth It? Meh. For the price and the time commitment, you could make two batches of a “lesser” chili that still tastes really good.
Chili Theory 101
What do you do when you want to make your own chili, but you don’t trust J. Kenji Lopez-Alt or Paula Deen to give you the best recipe? Well, you statistically analyze 30 different chili recipes on the internet to figure out what the optimal chili is, of course. So that’s what we did just for you. You’re welcome. Yes, we are mega nerds. 🤓
⚡ Lightning Fast Chili Numbers ⚡
66.67% of recipes used chili powder in some form
93.33% of recipes used beans
46% of recipes used bell peppers
90% of recipes used garlic
100% of recipes used onion
75% of recipes that utilized chili peppers used fresh chilis
40% of recipes that utilized chili peppers used dried chilis
35% of recipes that utilized chili peppers used canned chilis
100% of recipes called for tomatoes in some form (so why are they a disputed ingredient then Wikipedia??? HMMMMMM???)
The average simmer time of the recipes we analyzed was 102 minutes
What is the Best Type of Chili for Chili? 🌶️
By and far the most popular type of chili that is used in the recipes that we sampled are jalapeño peppers with 46.67% of recipes calling for them.
If you’re using dried chilis, you’re likely using Ancho and New Mexico chilis — 16.67% and 10% of recipes used them, respectively.
For canned chilis, chipotles in adobo and green chilies each appeared in 10% of recipes.
Of course, you should also use chili powder.
What’s the Best Type of Beef for Chili? 🥩
Ground Beef. 66.67% of recipes call for ground beef. If you want to elevate your chili, consider using beef chuck or beef short ribs, but by and far, ground beef is the way to go.
What’s the Best Type of Beans for Chili?
Kidney, pinto, and black are the most popular types of beans used in the chili recipes we analyzed. Kidney beans came out on top, with pinto and black beans sometimes also appearing alongside kidney beans, but sometimes on their own.
The best bean to put in chili is the bean you like!
Sidenote: There was one recipe that we looked at that used maple baked beans in addition to kidney beans. So if you want more bean inspiration…try that? Maybe?
What are the Best Seasonings for Chili? 🧂
Other than chili powder, the top herbs and spices to add to chili are cumin, dried oregano, smoked paprika, black pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper. Oh and it’s not in this chart — but also use salt. That’s just a given.
What Liquid Should I Add to Chili? 🍺
Beef broth, beer, and chicken stock are all options to add to your chili. These were the top 3, with beef broth appearing in 40% of recipes, followed by beer at 33%. Some recipes specified a type of beer (dark, IPA, lager), while others said to use your favorite (which we think is the right call).
If you’ve added canned tomatoes of any variety, depending on how much you add (how tomato-forward your chili is) then you might not need to add more liquid to bring everything together. 17% of the recipes we analyzed didn’t add any additional liquid.
10% added water, but why add water when you can add flavor?
What Other Ingredients Should I Add to Chili? 🥓
Brown sugar (to sweeten), bacon (to add salt and smokeyness), cornmeal (to thicken), worcestershire sauce (umami), and unsweetened cocoa powder (for depth of flavor) are just a few ingredients that you can try next time you make chili.
We found 30 different ingredients total, the ingredients above are the ones that appeared the most frequently.
You could also try: cider vinegar, coffee, hot sauce, mushrooms, pancetta, molasses, chorizo, marmite, maple syrup… the list goes on.
How Should I Cook Chili? 🍲
Large pot, Dutch oven, instant pot — it doesn’t matter what you cook chili in. As long as you cook it for a while to let the flavors come together. (An instant pot will speed up this process vs a pot or Dutch oven).
How Long Should I Simmer Chili? ⏰
We recommend simmering chili for at least 102 minutes (1 hour and 42 minutes). This is based on the average of the chili recipes we analyzed. The recipe with the shortest simmering time was 15 minutes (too short) and the longest simmering time was 270 minutes (excessively long).
We didn’t analyze enough instant pot chili recipes to determine the ideal time for cooking and pressure release.
How to Make the Best Chili
Wow, isn’t statistics fun?
“But what does it all mean?”, you ask. Well, based on our data, we have created what we’re going to call The Mediocre Chef Beef Chili Blueprint. This isn’t a recipe, per se. Instead, think of it as a guideline, for what makes a chili, a chili.
The Mediocre Chef Beef Chili Blueprint
Start with ground beef. Make sure to brown it first.
Sweat off some onion and garlic after you’ve browned your beef.
Add in some tomatoes. Crushed or diced, whatever floats your boat. If you’re feeling fancy, use fire roasted tomatoes. Some tomato paste is good too.
Make sure to give your chili some heat by including jalapeños.
Add in beef broth or beer (or both).
Make sure to season with chili powder*, cumin, oregano, salt, and pepper. Maybe a little touch of smoked paprika if you want to introduce some smokiness to the dish. (Or you can add some bacon instead.)
Don’t forget your beans! Kidney beans to be precise.**
Add in some brown sugar to give the chili some sweetness.
Simmer the chili for around 1 hour 40 minutes.
Make sure your chili claims to be the best ever —confidence is sexy!
*We recommend buying a chili powder that is actually ground chilis (ancho, chipotle) and not the mild chili powder we’re used to (which uses mild chilis along with a bunch of cumin, oregano, and a few other seasonings). Another way to up your chili game is to make a chili paste with dried chilis (Ancho, New Mexico) like they do in this recipe.
**If you’re from Texas just omit the beans.
And that, according to statistics, is what makes a good beef chili.
“BUt YOU diDN'T GiVe mE AnY mEASurEMEnts”
Yeah. This is a blueprint. Maybe we’ll release a real recipe soon 👀
Dishonorable Mentions
Throughout our research, we discovered a few recipes that made us question if we wanted to live on this planet. Since we have suffered, you must now suffer too.
Definitely do not make this recipe which uses 1 ½ cups of BBQ sauce (1 cup of your favorite, and ½ cup of your favorite hot/spicy BBQ sauce). BBQ in chili? Nty.
Also we cannot in good conscience recommend this recipe which uses 1 pinch of chili powder. (This recipe broke Trevor when he read it.)
(It goes without saying, but we’re making it clear — do NOT send these blogs any hate for their crimes against chili. Be a good internet citizen.)
Closing Thoughts — A Mediocre Note about The Algorithm™
When we were conducting our research, we decided the simplest thing to do was to Google “chili recipes” and “best chili recipes”. As we were about 80% of the way through collecting our data we saw that there was a severe under-representation of recipes that utilized dried chilis. What we realized was that our search terms were not specific enough. So we swapped up the search terms and started using “chili recipes with dried chilis” and “Texas chili”. This seemed to balance things out. We guess the moral of this story is to be careful with what your search terms are. The algorithm is shitty and sometimes you need to finesse it so you don’t fall victim to confirmation bias.