The best chili ever

To me, chili is a well-balanced meal of meat, tomatoes, peppers, onions and sometimes beans that is regionally popular in the Southwest and the Midwest. According to my search, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Louisiana all fancy themselves as “chili states.” Texas is clearly the inventor of chili, with its no-beans approach, and Ohio is famous for Cincinnati-style chili, which I personally love but find is not as popular in these parts. Cincinnati is actually considered one of the top chili cities in the nation.

Texas hosts the annual World Championship Chili Cookoff, and true Texas chili is just meat, chili peppers and spices. I am not sure how folks around here would like this basic approach.

Springfield, Illinois, makes “chilli” with two l’s and includes suet, which makes a greasy chili. In Kansas City, Missouri, chili includes lots of barbecued meats like pulled pork and brisket, often adding barbecue sauce. I would put Big Dog Daddy’s award-winning brisket chili in this class, and personally love his brisket chili.

New Mexico is known for its green Hatch chili peppers and chili verde dish, and along with Oklahoma and Louisiana, mostly prefers the no-beans approach.

But here we are in Ohio, where many people, myself included, like beans in their chili.

Here are my personal chili-making tips.

Cooking it Use a cast-iron skillet to brown the meat first, and then sauté the vegetables in that same pan.

Meat matters Use 80/20 ground beef. Two pounds is usually right for a full crockpot batch. Brown it properly to achieve a deeply caramelized beef flavor. Place the whole pound or two into the hot pan as one big chunk. Let one side completely brown for 5 minutes, flip, and let the other side achieve a browned crust. Only then should you break it up to cook the interior portions of the ground beef.

Onions Finely chop one medium onion per 2 pounds of ground beef and sauté it for 10 minutes in the pan used to brown the beef, with a bit of added oil. If you chop the onions fine enough, the onion haters won’t notice them, but your flavor profile will be dramatically improved. Can you also add finely chopped mushrooms or carrots? Yes, you can.

The beans Keep it simple and add canned kidney beans in chili sauce. One 16-ounce can per pound of ground beef.

Tomatoes Make your life easy: use petite diced tomatoes, fire-roasted or with green chilies, two 14.5-ounce cans per pound of ground beef.

Spices Order Gebhardt’s Chili Powder online. Use 1 tablespoon per pound of ground beef. To that, I add 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes and 1 teaspoon garlic powder.

Peppers Bottled, marinated roasted red peppers are perfect for chili. Drain the juices, chop them into small pieces and add them in. They give a nice little zip to the chili.

The crock Put tomatoes, beans, peppers, onions, meat and spices into the crockpot. Set on high for 6 hours. Stir and walk away.

Final notes Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce to ramp up the umami factor. Add 2 tablespoons Better Than Bouillon dissolved in 2 cups hot water for the final touch.

Make sure to taste and adjust seasonings as needed near the end.

As always, I urge you to eat fresh, dine local and be happy.