At Home: IndianapolisEater's Contest Winning Chili Recipe
Author: indianapoliseater | Filed under: At Home
Chili is a great way to warm up on a cold winter day and last week, we posted a recipe for King David Dogs’ chili recipe. This week, we have another At Home segment with another chili recipe, but this one has a twist: it is my recipe!
My recipe has won the chili contest that WIBIA, EatHSE and several of our friends have had the past couple years. Yep, that’s right, I’ve won with this recipe twice and had rave reviews on it when I’ve brought it out to football tailgates in years past (it’s actually a sore spot for WIBIA that I’ve won both times). So, what I am saying is that with this recipe, you are guaranteed a flavorful chili that is simple and cheap to make!
FYI, this is a recipe you would want to make a day or two before and let sit in the refrigerator. Also, you’ll notice one thing about this recipe…no beans! Beans themselves are great, but they don’t belong in chili, in my opinion. Without further adieu, here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
[The spice level of this chili recipe tends to be hot, so that is just a warning.]
- 2 pounds hot/spicy ground sausage (if you want to cool the recipe down some, use mild sausage or ground beef)
- 4 cups of tomato juice
- 29 ounces tomato sauce
- 12 ounces tomato paste
- 1 large onion (chopped and diced)
- 1/2 medium-sized green pepper (chopped and diced; seeds removed)
- 1/2 cup of celery (chopped and diced)
- 1/4 cup of chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar (I often use Splenda as a substitute)
- 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon paprika
Steps
- Brown ground sausage and drain fat out of skillet.
- Dump ground sausage in large pot and then cover with all other ingredients and stir.
- Leave mixture in pot and simmer on LOW for two hours (if it comes to a boil, turn off burner and let the pot simmer with no heat source).
- Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- On the day of eating, pull chili pot out of refrigerator and re-heat on LOW for one hour.
- After one hour, increase temperature of heat source in order to get chili to desired temperature (simmering on LOW will probably get you there).
After you get the chili to your desired eating temperature, serve it up plain, with cheese or whichever way you like it and enjoy.
-IndianapolisEater
IE:
Congrats on your win! Thanks for posting the recipe:)
Congrats again!
It sounds good, but I have to have beans in mine because to me? That looks like chili you put on a chili dog – which is really good, but only for that purpose.
You could use it for a chili dog if you wanted. I have used it as a base for a taco dip before.
I generally don’t have anything against beans, but I don’t put them in my chili because I know that eating chili is already going to cause me enough problems…I don’t need to add that by putting beans in there too.
That looks super tasty! I’ll be trying it this week. Will you be upset if I add beans?
Looks good. I have to ask about the Splenda. Why use it when the original recipe calls for only a half a teaspoon?
Good question. I use it because it is closer to the front of the shelf than the sugar is in my cupboard. In order to get to the sugar, I’d have to take half the things out off the shelf to reach it. So, I just use Splenda because it’s more convenient and I’m lazy.
I wouldn’t be upset at all because I ALMOST added beans this past time, but changed my mind at the last minute. You can obviously alter this recipe in any way that you like. Heck, you can even add macaroni noodles if you want!
I’ve altered in the past to make it hotter by adding paprika and hot sauce, by the way, so this recipe is by no means 100% set in stone. This is just the base that I use.
We’re having a chili contest at work on Friday, so this will be perfect! I’ll let you know how it turns out. I sometimes make a really mild version with cinnamon and brown sugar added — my little kids love it! Yours sounds much better for the grown ups, though!
Katy, I will warn you. You will not win with this chili! It is a fluke
I used brown sugar in mine and I got 5th place… bogus!
WIBIA… ha ha. Well, I am using his recipe (plus beans) AND making a sweeter one with brown sugar and cinnamon. So, we’ll see how they fare!
I’ll report back over the weekend!
I’m going to try this one out. Thanks for the recipe.
…and a no bean chili at that. Now that’s how real chili is made.
So I made this for my work contest yesterday. I also brought a sweet chili mac with cinnamon and brown sugar in it. There were seven other entries. No one commented on this one or voted for it… bummer! It was a little too spicy for me, but I only worked my way up to mild sauce at Taco Bell a few years ago.
The sweet chili mac won for “sweetest” (duh!) and “most unusual.” I’m not sure if that’s a good thing!