Want to learn how to make the best chili? These test kitchen tips are a good place to start.
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Published Feb. 1, 2017.
During the cooler months, we can’t get enough of our favorite chili recipes, whether it’ssimple beef with beansorcomplex vegetarian chili. Done right, these dishes are hearty, flavorful, and comforting—just what we want this time of year.
If you’re ready to take your chili game to the next level, look no further than these simple test kitchen tips and thedozens of foolproof chili recipesin our archives.
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1. Make Your Own Chili Powder
Store-bought chili powderis convenient, butmaking your own is an easy way to enhance chili—it’ll improve both the texture and flavor of the dish. You can make asimple versionbytoasting dried chiles, or you can make a dressed-up homemade chili powder, as senior editor Andrew Janjigian did in ourBest Ground Beef Chilirecipe.
He started by toasting ancho chiles in aDutch ovenuntil fragrant. After they cooled, he processed the chiles along with herbs, spices, andtortilla chips, which added bulk for the food processor and thickened the chili.
2. Spice Up the Spices
When it comes to herbs and spices,it’s not justhow muchyou add that matters;how you add themalso affects the flavor of the dish.
To intensify spices, especially commercially ground blends like chili powder, we recommend cooking them in a little butter or oil first—called“blooming”—which makes them more potent and complex. If a chili recipe calls for sautéing aromatics, you can add the spices once the vegetables are almost cooked.
3. Prep Vegetables Properly
Cutting aromatics (whether you're mincing garlic or dicing an onion) and other vegetables into even-sized pieces is one of the most basic ways to become a better cook.
Doing so means your dish will be evenly cooked; otherwise, you could end up with a perfect bite followed by one with raw or overcooked pieces.
Speaking of vegetables, you can also use them to thicken a chili that’s too watery. Simply puree a portion of them (along with some beans, if you’d like) to add body, just as we do in ourWhite Chicken Chilirecipe.
4. Give Your Beans a Brine
We typically call for canned beans in our chili recipes, butif you’ve opted for dried beans, you should brine them first.This will tenderize the beans’ skin and allow them to soak up liquid without rupturing.
If you’re not sure how to brine beans, use ourbean-brining formula: 3 tablespoons of salt dissolved in 4 quarts of cold water for 1 pound of dried beans. Let the beans sit for 8 to 24 hours. To speed up the softening and further reduce cooking time, you can also add a pinch of baking soda—but be careful not to add more or your beans will taste soapy. For more information, see ourhandy guide on how to add beans to a dish.
5. Treat Your Meat Right
Baking soda isn’t just useful for softening dried beans;it can also help make the meat in your chili juicier.In ourBest Ground Beef Chilirecipe, we call fortossing the beef with a mixture of water, salt, and baking sodaand letting it sit for 20 minutes. The baking soda raises the pH of the meat, which means its proteins attract and hold onto more water. But it has another benefit too—it speeds up theMaillard reaction, so the meat browns more quickly.
Another way to boost your chili from good to great?Use freshly ground beef—even if it meansgrinding it yourself(it’s not hard to do, we promise). Grocers who offer freshly ground beef generally start with whole primal cuts. Those that don’t usually purchase bulk packages of ground beef from processing plants and regrind and supplement it with meat scraps. Freshly ground beef is not only meatier in flavor, but there’s also less risk of bacterial contamination compared to the preground stuff.
6. Choose the Right Kind of Chicken
When developing our recipe forWhite Chicken Chili, we found thatground chicken turned rubbery, not to mention it looked crumbly and somewhat unattractive in the dish. We upgraded our chili by using bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts instead.
To build flavor, we browned the chicken first and then poached it in a mixture of broth and vegetable-bean puree. When it was done cooking, we removed the chicken from the pot, allowed it to cool and then shredded the meat into bite-size pieces and discarded the bones.
7. Go Low and Slow with Ground Beef
Ground beef might not seem like it needs much time to cook—many chili recipes call for 45 minutes or less—butyou’ll get better results if you simmer it longer.
Why? Ground chuck contains the same proteins and collagen as a chuck roast, so it needs just as much exposure to moist heat to properly break down and turn tender. In ourBest Ground Beef Chilirecipe, we let it cook for 1½ to 2 hours.
8. See Fat as Flavor
When making chili from scratch, you might notice a bright orange slick of grease at the top of the pan, especially toward the end of cooking. Don’t give in to the temptation to skim it off. Instead,stir this valuable fat back into the chili, otherwise you’ll be removing important flavor compounds and risk ending up with a lackluster dish despite all your hard work.
9. Add a Boost of Umami to Vegetarian Chili
Meat-free chili is a good option whether you’re cooking for a vegetarian or are simply looking for a healthier option. One of the keys to making thebest vegetarian chiliis touse ingredients that contribute umami, or rich meaty flavor, without the meat.Soy sauce,mushrooms, and tomatoes are all common umami boosters. For more tips, check out ourquick guide to amping up the savoriness of food.
