Saturday, December 6, 2025

Texas Chili [updated]


2 pounds ground beef
2 pound diced steak or stew meat
4 large yellow onions – diced
4 cans (14.5 ounce) cut diced tomatoes
4 cans (8 ounce) tomato sauce
4 cans (14 ounce) beef broth
6 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoon ground oregano
2 teaspoon paprika
4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Makes a lot so use a large Dutch oven. I used an enamel coated cast iron one. 

Brown ground beef, steak and onions, breaking it up as you go. Drain well. Wipe grease out of pot.

Add spices  and meat back to pot and continue to cook until meat is well coated. Add the remaining ingredients.

Reduce heat, cover and simmer for at least 1-1.5hrs minutes or until reduced slightly. Add water or more broth if needed.

My tweaks/tips:
I don’t time the cook down at the end. I stir it regularly to incorporate the meat and canned items until it is thick. Use your judgement on how thick you like your chili.

Goes well with sour cream, shredded cheese, Fritos, cornbread, fresh diced onion, fresh or bottled jalapenos, tortilla chips, on a hot dog, fresh cilantro, or with fresh avocado.

Have onions and steak cut up before you even turn on the heat. While that cooks measure your spices out and have them ready. Sometimes I do this in the crockpot and have the canned items already in the pot heating up before I drain/season the meat out of a skillet, then add it all together in the crock pot and let it go. 

Original recipe calls for cayenne pepper [2tsp], 2 cups of water and twice the black pepper. We like it but tender-mouthed folks have said it’s too spicy, so we leave the cayenne out and half the black pepper. I skip the water also. It weakens the flavor and takes much longer to cook down.