The Only Chili Recipe You’ll Ever Need

Ingredients:

-Beans (In this recipe, I used lentils, pinto, and red kidney beans but use whichever beans you like to use)

-White Onion

-Garlic

-Jalepenos

-Green Bell Peppers

-Ground Beef (Grass fed ground beef is best!)

-Red Wine

-Fresh Tomatoes

-Bone Broth

-Olive Oil (Or whatever your preferred cooking oil is)

-Preferred Seasonings (salt, pepper, cayenne, rosemary, sage, cumin)

-For serving: your favorite cheese and fresh parsley

Step 1: Prepare your veggies: cut up the onion (you’ll need about half of a large onion or a whole small onion for this recipe), 2-3 garlic cloves depending on how much you like garlic, 2 jalapeños, and one large green bell pepper. Also cut up your fresh tomatoes, salt them and put then to the side for later.

Step 2: In a large pot on medium heat, heat up a tablespoon of olive oil and add in the ground beef. Season up the beef with some of your seasonings and cook the ground beef until it’s about 60% done (it’s going to finish cooking later, don’t worry!) Once the beef is 60% done, use a spoon take it out and put it on a plate with paper towel to drain some of the oil. We’re using a spoon because we want to keep the flavors of the ground beef in the pan for the next step.

Step 3: Add in a little more of your favorite cooking oil and then add in the vegetables you cut up earlier. Add in the onion and garlic first, and let those cook down together for about 3-4 minutes. Then add in the the jalapeños and the bell pepper in with the onion and garlic and let the ingredients cook together. At this point, make sure you add in some salt and pepper to the vegetables too because you don’t want a bland chili (that’s the worst!)

Step 4: Once the vegetables are soft and fragrant, add in the beans of your choice for the chili. Again for this recipe I used one can of pinto, one can of black, and one can of red kidney beans. Next, add in a little more salt and pepper and here also add in the cumin seasoning and some rosemary (I know it may seem like a lot to add salt to each step, but you’re only adding in a little bit each time. Salting each step of the cooking process brings out the flavors of what you’re cooking so nothing tastes bland once the chili is fully done!)

Step 5: Once the beans and vegetables are cooked together for a little bit, add the ground beef back into the pot, add in the fresh cut seasoned tomatoes and mix everything together. Here you’re going to season everything again with the seasonings and mix everything together very well. Then add in 1/4 cup of red wine after everything is mixed together, (adding in red wine to the chili gives it a more meaty and very savory flavor, trust me you won’t want to miss this step!) You’re going to cook this down so the meat and vegetables soak up the red wine and cook the alcohol flavor out, about 6-8 minutes.

Step 6: Once the red wine is cooked down, add in 3/4 cup of bone broth to the chili. I recommend finding a low sodium bone broth because of the amount of salt that we added to this recipe. Or if you wanted to skip some salting steps and add in regular bone broth here to not worry about the sodium content that’s great too! Bone broth has so many benefits such as aiding in digestion, immune system support (especially during the fall and winter months when it’s cold out), and is a great source of collagen for the body.

Step 7: Then add in some water, add in just enough water to cover the top of the chili. Mix everything again and let the chili come to a boil on medium heat. Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to medium low, give everything one more mix and place a lid on top of the chili. Now here we’re going to let the chili reduce (this mean cook the water and bone broth down and the chili will be super thick and meaty, delicious!) Reducing the chili will take about 30- 35 minutes on medium low, while stirring the chili occasionally.

Step 8: After 35 minutes, take the lid off and the chili should be nice and thick. At this point, taste the chili to make sure that it’s seasoned the way you like it: if it needs more spice add more cayenne, if it needs more salt add more salt, etc.

Step 9: It’s time for plating! You can serve the chili by itself in a bowl with some cheese and parsley to garnish. I love eating my chili with some crackers or tortilla chips. I’ve also served the chili over some rice and it was divine! I hope you enjoy :)