Matt's Chipotle Chili

Here is a bit of a weird post, but below is my recipe for chili. Now, I am not normally a chili person. I fact I hated chili most of my life. I was never able to find a recipe that I really liked. Every year at work we do a chili lunch before the Super Bowl. Some people really make some fantastic chili's. This year we had a few retirements and less people making chili. A week before the lunch we still had three slots still open so I decided to sign up and see if I could make something that was passable. 

This is where I kicked into my "research mode". I have this thing where whenever I need to find information on something, I go into this really deep process of looking up all the information I can on it. The result is that I identified some "base ingredients that I saw in all of the recipes, looked at a "tex-med" flavor and then sort of made up my own recipe. 

To my surprise my chili actually turned out amazingly well and it was actually a hit at the super bowl lunch. I think it turned out so well is because it cooked for nearly fourteen hours in the crockpot. So, here below is my chili recipe as it stands today. I hope everyone enjoys it.

Matt's Chipotle Chili 

Cook Time 10+ Hours: Slow Cooker

Ingredients

  • 2-3lbs beef stew meat cut to 0.5”-1” cubes.
  • 1lbs hot chorizo (no casing)
  • Three garlic cloves minced/pressed
  • Three 16 oz cans of kidney beans: rinsed and drained
  • Three 15 oz cans of tomato sauce
  • One 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
  • 1 Cup Beef Broth
  • One 6 oz can tomato paste
  • 3/4 cup salsa verde
  • One package McCormick Chili Seasoning
  • 3/4 cup diced white onion
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 dried Chipotle Chili pepper
  • 1 sliced chili in adobo sauce with spoonful of sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Directions

  1. Brown chorizo on high in a cast iron skillet to get edges crispy. Transfer to crockpot and then brown beef in the skillet and then transfer to crockpot. 
  2. Saute onions in skillet to soak up flavor for 3-5 minutes. Toss in garlic for 1 minute. Add all to crockpot. 
  3. Place remaining ingredients except the chili in adobo sauce into the crockpot. Season with salt and pepper and cook on low overnight if possible. 
  4. One hour before serving remove lid and continue cooking to allow chili to thicken. Remove the dried chipotle pepper. 
  5. Add the chili in adobo sauce if desired.