Marilyn's Chili
My chili recipe. It's not much, but it's mine. And, uh, Marilyn's.
This is a recipe I've been making for more than 35 years. I learned it from a family friend way back when I was 14 years old, and I've been making it ever since. It got me through my late teens and early 20s, thanks to it being a simple recipe that uses cheap, shelf-stable ingredients (except for the ground beef, which can hang out in the freezer). I even made it in a crappy basement studio apartment with no stove at 19 years old—I had an electric skillet just so I could make this chili.
It may be the familiarity of time, or feelings of loyalty to an old recipe that has been there for me in the hardest of circumstances, but I think it's good.
When serving it to someone for the first time, I will sheepishly over-explain that it's not a proper chili, it's more like a tomato-beef-bean stew. It doesn't really taste like chili you get in a can or at a restaurant, or at one of those chili cook-offs; it's heavier on the tomatoes. What makes a chili a chili? I dunno. I don't care enough about chili as a category to understand how this one does or doesn't fit, because I have this chili and I neither need nor want another one. In the one lifetime I get to spend on this planet, this is chili to me.
These days I fancy it up a bit, but only a bit. I've upgraded from canned beans to Rancho Gordo pinto beans. I cook the onions in bacon fat sometimes. I can afford the good canned tomatoes now. I always top it with sour cream. But I don't mess with it too much. The charm is in its familiarity.
The recipe makes a big batch of chili, 12 servings, and it freezes well, making it great when you need to prep a bunch of meals in advance. I freeze the chili in individual servings in my Souper Cubes and then vacuum seal them. If you have a large enough pot, you can double the recipe.
On the day my daughter was born, while I was in labor, I had time to kill waiting for the show to get rolling, so I made a batch of this chili. I even published the recipe that morning on an old recipe sharing site a friend of mine had built, called Cookooree. It was a productive day!
A few ingredient notes:
- Don't use the leanest ground beef, use the fattier stuff.
- I've experimented with plant-based ground beef, both Beyond Meat and Impossible, but wasn't happy with them for this recipe. YMMV.
- It's worth using better canned tomatoes. I like Bianco DiNapoli. If you can't get great canned tomatoes, try fire roasted ones. If you can't find good whole tomatoes, you can use diced tomatoes instead.
- Chili powder is a blend of ground dried chilis and other spices, and every brand makes theirs a little differently. These days I use the Penzey's Medium Hot or Regular chili powder, but for many years I just used whatever I could find at the grocery store, like McCormick. I didn't like the Spicely brand chili powder, though.
- If you use canned beans, make sure they're plain chili beans, usually pinto beans in a mild chili sauce. You don't want prepared canned chili with beans in it, and you don't want baked beans, that'd be weird. If you can't find big 28 oz cans of beans (I usually can't these days), you can use four 15 oz cans.
- If you have the time and patience to use dried beans instead, it's both cheaper and tastes better—the downside is that you have to cook the beans on their own before adding them to the chili, which takes a few hours. Use one 16 oz bag of dried beans. I like the beans from Rancho Gordo, but even the cheapest bag of dried beans is good. If you try to shortcut it by cooking the dried beans directly in the chili, the acid in the tomatoes will keep the beans from softening, and you'll have little rocks in your chili that will never, ever, ever soften. Ask me how I know.
Marilyn's Chili
Tomatoes, beef, and beans, along with some spices, make a comforting, rich meal that's easy and affordable.
Print the recipeIngredients
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 1 lb ground beef (not too low fat)
- two 28 oz. cans whole tomatoes
- one 8 oz. can tomato sauce
- 2-3 tbsp chili powder
- about ¾ tbsp sugar
- salt to taste
- two 28 oz. cans chili beans, drained
- 1 tsp cornstarch
Instructions
- In a large, wide saucepan, heat oil.
- Saute onions until they’re translucent, about 5 minutes. Pull the onions out of the pan and set aside.
- Brown the ground beef, then return the onions to the pan.
- Add the canned tomatoes, pulling them apart into bite-size chunks as you add them. Include the liquid from the cans.
- Add all of the tomato sauce except for about 1 tbsp, leave that in the can and set it aside.
- Add chili powder, sugar and salt to taste.
- Let simmer for about 20 minutes.
- Add the drained beans.
- Stir the cornstarch into the reserved tomato sauce to make a slurry, then add it to the chili.
- Simmer for another 20 minutes.
Tastes better the next day. You can top it with sour cream or cheddar cheese. Freezes well.
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