The Best Beef Chili Recipe (We Tested 6 Popular Contenders!)

If I had to name one dish I could eat on repeat without growing tired of it, it would have to be chili. I can happily enjoy it day after day — no complaints. My husband is on the same page. In fact, as I cooked through each recipe, with chili served up for dinner several days in a row and vats of leftovers in the fridge, he came home from work one day and laughingly shared that he’d gone out for lunch with colleagues and ordered — you guessed it — chili. 

For me (and him, apparently), the robust flavor; comforting homeyness; hearty, stick-to-your-ribs quality; and versatility of chili are unmatched. Even though I’m a year-round chili girl, winter is prime chili season. So when I was presented with the opportunity to review six highly rated chili recipes, I eagerly accepted. I love chili in all forms — with or without beans. Whatever your own proclivities might be, the focus of this assignment was to test beef chili recipes that do indeed include beans. 

The good news is that I enjoyed every single one of these recipes — there weren’t any duds in the batch. Some possessed more complexity, some were thicker, and some were spicier. Of course, my own subjective preferences guided my ratings, but I discuss each recipe’s strong points so that you can discover which one best suits your tastes. 

As mentioned above, the focus for this showdown is beef chili with beans. Most of the recipes here rely on ground beef (although one uses beef short ribs) and canned beans (the one exception is the same short rib recipe, which calls for dried beans). Some form of canned tomato appears in all of the recipes, and most incorporate chili powder in the broth. From there, the recipes vary in terms of what spices, aromatics, and flavor builders they include. Some are thick, some are brothy, and some fall somewhere in between. 

I have spent the last 26 years in food media — 20 as a magazine editor, and six as a freelance recipe developer and food writer. Over the course of my career, I have written, tested, and developed literally thousands of recipes. I know how to evaluate a recipe for flavor, texture, and clarity and success (or failure) of the process.

Creating a good chili recipe with only five ingredients is a feat for sure. This one keeps things simple with just onion, chili powder, ground chuck, canned diced tomatoes with green chiles (I used Ro-tel), and canned beans (oil, salt, and pepper are freebie ingredients). The recipe gives you the option of black, pinto, or kidney beans, and I went with black beans. After browning the beef, you add the remaining ingredients and cook for just 20 minutes. 

With so few ingredients, the resulting chili’s flavor is understandably less complex or well-rounded than the other chili recipe here. The fattier beef (80% lean ground chuck) adds a little more richness, but overall this chili tastes tangy, very tinned tomato-y, and a bit harsh. Although a little extra simmering time might have melded the flavors better, when you add all your favorite toppings, it’s a satisfying-enough meal that’s ready in only about 40 minutes.

This chili is for you if you’re short on time, have plenty of chili toppings on hand, and don’t want to fuss with a lot of ingredients. 

To make this chili, you first brown ground beef (I used 85% lean) with chopped garlic. Drain off the excess fat, and then add tomato sauce, a couple of tablespoons chili powder, some ground cumin, dried oregano, salt, and cayenne pepper. Cover and simmer this mixture for an hour, adding a little water as you go if it gets too dry. At that point, you stir in a 1/4 cup of masa harina dissolved into a half-cup of water, plus one can each of kidney and pinto beans.

You’ll end up with a thick chili that’s texturally akin to old-school ground beef taco meat. The only liquid in the pot is the small can of tomato sauce; the bit of water used to dissolve the masa basically becomes a corn slurry and thickens rather than thins the chili. I watched the recipe’s accompanying video to make sure I didn’t miss something (no broth or beer or canned tomatoes), but this is the intention of the recipe: a thick, less soup-like chili. I would have liked more (or any) broth, but the corn flavor from the masa was divine. 

This chili is for you if you’d like a thick concoction to use as a topping for nachos, hot dogs, or baked potatoes.

For this recipe, you start by sautéing diced onion and bell pepper in olive oil, then stir in minced garlic and a minced canned chipotle chile. At that point, you’ll stir in chili powder, plus some ground cumin, salt, and pepper. Then add a pound of ground beef (85% lean) and cook it until it’s no longer pink. Finish with fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, canned diced tomatoes with chiles, kidney beans, and a cup of water; you’ll simmer this for about 25 minutes or until the chili thickens.

This recipe had the highest tomato-to-beef ratio (38 ounces to 16 ounces), so the finished chili’s overall flavor was very tangy and tomato-rich, but verged on tinny. The chipotle chile, large amount of chili powder, and fire-roasted tomatoes added subtle smokiness, and the chili had a pleasing thickness similar to that of marinara sauce. 

This chili is for you if you love to dunk a grilled cheese sandwich into your bowl. Its tomato-forward flavor makes for a great pairing.

The first step in this recipe is to combine uncooked lean ground beef with chili powder. The intro to the recipe explains that this allows the chili powder to better permeate the beef. You’ll then brown this beef with onion, fresh jalapeño, and minced garlic. At that point, stir in the rest of the ingredients: chili powder, cumin, diced bell pepper, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, canned kidney beans, beef broth, beer (I used lager), tomato paste, brown sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. You’ll simmer, uncovered, for 45 to 60 minutes to get the chili to your desired thickness.

This chili was the brothiest of the bunch, and I loved that aspect. The ratio of meat, beans, and broth felt appropriately balanced — not too much of one or the other. But even though I used a mild lager beer and simmered it in the chili for about an hour, the beer flavor threatened to overwhelm the pot with its distinctive maltiness.

This chili is for you if you prefer a soupy, thinner chili with lots of broth.

For those who love to dig into a fun cooking project, this recipe guides you through every element of the chili experience from scratch. Although the ingredient list and the instructions are long, the process gives you a great understanding of chili fundamentals. 

It starts with dried dark red kidney beans, which you soak in salted water overnight or up to a day. Then comes the chile purée — no dried chili powder for this recipe. Instead, you use three kinds of dried chiles (López-Alt gives lots of options) to cover rich-fruity, sweet-fresh, and hot notes; I used ancho, New Mexico red, and cascabel. Remove the seeds and stems, toast them in a dry pan, plump them in chicken stock, and ultimately blend them with whole spices (cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cloves, and star anise) that you’ve toasted and ground to a powder. You’ll also incorporate unsweetened chocolate, tomato paste, finely ground coffee beans, a couple of anchovies, some soy sauce, and a bit of Marmite into the purée.

As for the meat, you’ll be working with bone-in short ribs. You first brown the whole ribs on all sides, let them cool, remove the meat from the bones (reserving the bones), and cut the meat into small pieces. At this point, the chili starts to really get rolling. Sauté onion in the rendered beef fat, then add garlic, some fresh green chiles, and dried oregano and cook until fragrant. The chile purée goes in at that point, with some more chicken stock, the chopped beef and beef bones, and bay leaves. Bring this to a simmer, add the soaked beans, and cook for an hour. Then stir in crushed tomatoes and cider vinegar and cook for another few hours (I went for 3 more hours), until the beans and beef are fully tender.

The finishing step is to remove the beef bones and stir in 1/4 cup of liquor (I used bourbon), a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, and some hot sauce before adjusting salt and pepper to taste.

Yes, that’s a lengthy description, and the process was lengthy as well: overnight soaking of beans plus roughly 5 1/2 hours of cooking the next day. This isn’t hidden; the recipe and its thorough intro let you know to buckle up because it will be quite a project. This chili did have the most complex, richest flavor of the batch (with one caveat, see below), and the short ribs were divine — supremely beefy, juicy, with a tender-chewy texture that elevated every bite. The beans became tender without going mushy, and the chile flavor was so much more delicious than the usual chili powder base, boasting bitter, hot, sweet, fruity, smoky, and earthy notes. What might seem like bonkers, kitchen-sink type ingredients (Marmite, anchovies, coffee, soy sauce) are known umami boosters that all pull their weight here. 

I love an occasional in-depth cooking project (this is not a weeknight recipe), and I had loads of fun making this recipe. But here’s where the chili went a little off-kilter for me. I tasted it toward the end, before adding the booze, brown sugar, and hot sauce — and it was beyond fantastic. But for me, the alcohol, which is intended to bring the chili’s aromas to the forefront, overwhelmed all of the flavor nuances that I worked so hard to build. I used the lowest-proof option I had (80 proof), but it announced itself too strongly in the finished dish. I boiled it for a few minutes to try to tame the flavor, but I still found it to be a bit too strong. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the cost of making this chili. The meat itself (bone-in short ribs) cost more than 50 dollars, and if you don’t have all the whole spices on hand, or things like Marmite (I happen to, because I make my living testing and developing recipes), this chili would be very expensive to make. But it’s a fun project that rewards you with loads of knowledge and a big pot of delicious chili.

This chili is for you if you love a meaty cooking project that teaches lessons along the way, and you don’t mind spending more for the experience.

This recipe begins with sautéed onions, then adds in canned chipotle chiles, some cocoa powder, smoked paprika, ancho chile powder, dried oregano, cumin, cinnamon, and allspice. After the spices toast to release their fragrance, you add a couple of pounds of ground beef (again, I used 85% lean) to brown. You’ll then stir in canned petite diced tomatoes, a cup of stout beer (I used an oatmeal stout), and a cup of beef stock. After simmering for about 20 minutes, you finish by adding 2 cans of pinto beans, 4 ounces of dark chocolate (I used 70% bittersweet), and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter before adjusting salt and pepper to taste.

OK, so I’ll admit that the recipe title didn’t sound all that appealing to me at first. But then I remembered that a good friend of mine who happens to be the best cook I know revealed that he always finishes a pot of chili with a crumbled Reese’s cup or two — to give it a little bit of mole-style richness from the nuts and chocolate. And that’s what happens here. The bittersweet chocolate and peanut butter create a dark, Oaxacan mole-style “gravy” that grounds the chili. There’s good heat from the chipotles and ancho chile powder, and the richness of the nut butter and chocolate help round out and balance that heat. There’s bitterness here, too, from the chiles, stout beer, and chocolate, which adds to the chili’s depth. 

But know this: The comments and reviews for the recipe are divided. Overall, the recipe rating is 4 stars (out of 5), but many commenters say that they didn’t enjoy the chili, that it was too sweet or too bitter for their taste. For me, though, it had similar complexity to López-Alt’s chili — meatiness, heat, tangy tomato presence, richness galore — and took far less time to make. If I make this again, I’ll probably use slightly less dark chocolate, maybe going from 4 to 3 ounces, to allow the beef to shine through a little more.

If you plan to make the chili, make sure to use bittersweet chocolate (my 70% dark chocolate worked well), and maybe add it a bit at a time and taste as you go. Taste your stout beer, too, to make sure it’s well-rounded and not too bitter. The local oatmeal stout I used was lovely; Samuel Smith’s oatmeal stout should work well, too.

One last thing about this recipe: Please remember that whenever you add peanut butter to an unexpected dish (or any dish for that matter), tell the people you’re planning to serve in case anyone has a peanut allergy. If that’s the case, you could use tahini or almond butter here instead.