Our chilli con carne recipe makes a good old bowl of chilli for those who like their chilli hot and smoky. This recipe is not one of those quick chilli recipes. It’s a hearty slow-cooked chilli con carne that takes a few hours to make – but it definitely doesn’t take a lot of work to make. It’s also a chilli con carne that will leave you with lots of leftovers if you make a big batch. Leftover chilli con carne can be eaten as a dip and is fantastic in quesadillas or spooned onto nachos.
I’ve been making chilli con carne since I first started cooking as a teenager. It’s probably the only dish that I’ve made consistently since I was in my teens. My chilli recipe has taken many twists and turns along the way, but this recipe makes the big old pot of chilli I’ve been making for the last decade or so. This is not a quick and easy weeknight chilli. My chilli will take a few hours, but it repays your effort and time with big deep complex flavours.
I make this chilli con carne recipe year-round. It warms us up in winter and in summer we’re happy to sweat over our bowls. We usually make this chilli con carne when we need a change from whatever local food we’re been eating at home or on our travels in the Middle East or Southeast Asia. Or simply when we’re in need of comfort food. A big old bowl of chilli comes close to a big hug.
While we’ll eat bowls of chilli con carne with various toppings and garnishes such as Mexican cotija the first night, the next day we’ll make Lara’s ultimate nachos (with a side of authentic Mexican guacamole) and then we’ll usually finish off the batch of chilli con carne by making quesadillas for brunch or an easy dinner the day after.
Chilli Con Carne Recipe if You Like Your Chilli Hot and Smoky
Now firmly settled here in Southeast Asia, it’s either a batch of chilli con carne or ragù alla Bolognese that we’ll make after returning from a travel assignment in the region. Those trips usually involve eating our way through a Southeast Asian destination, whether it’s creating itineraries for the hawker centres of Singapore or Chinatown in Bangkok, hunting down the best bun cha in Hanoi or comparing the finest khao soi shops in Chiang Mai.
By the time we return to Siem Reap, all we want is classic comfort food, and both dishes are welcoming, warming and comforting. They also make the best leftovers, and can be repurposed for two or three dishes. In the case of this chilli con carne, it can be eaten on its own, cold, as a dip. You can also spoon it over Lara’s ultimate nachos or spread it on these quesadillas for a quick, easy and delicious Mexican brunch.
Notes on the Current Use of Chilli Con Carne over Chili Con Carne
A note for our American readers: for Grantourismo, our style guide calls for English-English / Australian-English, our native tongue. In English, the hot-tasting pod of a variety of capsicum is spelt ‘chilli’, while in American-English it’s ‘chili’. For the dish, in English it’s ‘chilli con carne’. However, it’s a dish of the Americas, where it’s spelt ‘chili con carne’, and when we first published the recipe I used American spelling. In keeping with our house style, Lara, site editor, has decided to use the English-English spelling.
Tips to Making This Chilli Con Carne Recipe
Just a few tips to making this chilli con carne recipe, starting with the ingredients.
The Ingredients
Over the years, I have had to adapt this chilli con carne recipe to the local ingredients that I can get, depending on what part of the world we were living and travelling in at the time. You may have to, also; let us know in the comments if you have any questions.
The Chillies in this Chilli Con Carne
Here in Siem Reap, there are mainly two types of dried chillies that we can find in the local markets and supermarkets. They are dried bird’s eye chillies and a larger chilli similar to Mexican guajillo. In the supermarkets these are quite often labelled ‘sweet chillies’. Using these and a handy tin of chipotles in adobo I can get a satisfactorily complex flavour.
The Contentious Tomatoes
Just with a ragù alla Bolognese, tomatoes are a contentious subject with any chilli con carne recipe. I don’t like tomatoes in a chilli con carne, however, I don’t mind a little tomato paste, just as I do with ragù. If I’m making my easy red tomato salsa recipe while making the chilli, I will take the liquid from the tinned tomatoes after they drain and add it to the pot of chilli.
Now, depending how far I have to stretch a batch of ragù, I might add a 400 g tin of tomatoes – minus the sauce in the tin – to the ragù to bulk it up for a lasagne. The same goes for the chilli con carne. I’ll add the canned tomatoes (draining the sauce) if I’m going to stretch it and use it for nachos or quesadillas the next day.
Beef Chunks or Beef Mince
Over the years I’ve made this chilli con carne recipe with beef chunks, beef mince, a mix of pork and beef mince, and just pork mince. Our beef mince here in Siem Reap has virtually no fat whatsoever (we can source Australian beef, but it’s usually premium cuts), so we use a mix of 2/3 pork mince to 1/3 beef mince. To make the chilli with beef chunks, you will need to add an extra two hours to the three hour cooking time.
To Beans or Not to Beans
To beans or not to beans, that is the question and here’s a confession: we nearly always add a can of red kidney beans one hour before the end of the cooking process. And yes, we’ve tried pinto beans, but we simply prefer the texture and taste of red kidney beans. And canned kidney beans are fine.
Texan chilli masters do not use beans, only beef. (Although ‘cowboy chillies’ do use beans.) While old-school Texan chilli con carne recipes will stipulate that beans should not be used, we are not looking to win a Texas chilli cook-off. You do as you like.
Serving the Chilli Con Carne
If there are just the two of us, we’ll ladle the chilli con carne into individual bowls and garnish it with a little shredded lettuce, diced fresh tomatoes, sliced red onion and/or spring onions (green onions), sliced jalapenos, and perhaps some Mexican cotija (white cheese), if we can get it, or shredded sharp cheddar if we can’t, and dollops of sour cream.
If we’re feeding a crowd, we’ll set the pot of chilli con carne at the centre of the table, surrounded by bowls of the toppings and garnishes. We’ll provide plenty of spoons, bottles of hot sauces, and encourage guests to help themselves and customise their bowls.
If you’re serving up a Tex-Mex or Mexican food feast, you could kick off the meal with bowls of this tortilla soup, which we learnt to make in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, and/or plates of my tacos al pastor, inspired by the tacos we became addicted to at Salón Corona in Mexico City.
Lara reckons sides of corn are essential, especially in the summertime, either a platter of char grilled corn on the cob (elotes), a big bowl of grilled corn salad, or, corn as starters, in the form of Mexican street corn in cups (esquites). We also recommend making classic margaritas and micheladas to wash it all down with.
Chilli Con Carne Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 guajillo chillies
- 4 dried bird’s eye chillies - or de arbol chillis
- 2 chipotles in adobo - in tin
- 4 bacon rashers
- 500 g pork mince - around 20% fat
- 250 g beef mince
- 1 large yellow onion - diced
- 6 cloves garlic - crushed
- 33 ml dark beer
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 tbsp cumin powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon powder
- ½ tsp clove powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp cayenne powder
- 400 g red kidney beans, canned - optional
- salt - to taste
Garnish
- Fresh tomatoes - diced into small cubes
- Iceberg lettuce - finely shredded
- Red onions - finely sliced
- Sharp cheddar cheese - shredded
- Spring onions - finely sliced
- Red salsa - store-bought or homemade; see link to our recipe above
- Sour cream - to serve
Instructions
- Snip the dried chillies (guajillos and bird’s eye) into small pieces with scissors over a small bowl. For a hotter final result, keep the seeds in the bowl, otherwise discard the seeds.
- In a pan over medium heat, toast the dried chilli pieces for a couple of minutes. Place them back in the bowl and cover with hot water. Let the chillies soak for 20 minutes.
- In a heavy pot, fry up the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon and reserve the fat from the bacon in the pot.
- In the same pot, cook the minced meats over medium heat until browned, if you have a smallish pot you may have to do this in batches. Remove the minced meat from the pot.
- Cook the onions in the pot over medium heat until slightly browned, then add the garlic. After one minute add the minced meat back in and pour over 3/4 of the beer. Add the bacon back into the pot as well.
- Reduce until almost all the beer is evaporated and add the stock.
- In a small skillet, roast the dried spices (cumin, cinnamon, cloves, coriander and cayenne) over medium heat for a minute until almost smoky. Add the remaining beer and combine. Add this to the pot. Turn the heat up to medium high.
- Remove the soaking chilli pieces from the bowl and add them to a food processor. Add the chipotles in adobo and a tablespoon of the adobo sauce. Add half a cup of water and blend to a liquid paste. This may take a couple of minutes.
- Add this paste to the chilli con carne and combine well. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Check, occasionally stirring as necessary for one and a half hours.
- Remove the lid and again cook for one and a half hours, checking and stirring occasionally. If the chilli is getting too dry add a little stock or water to the mix. Taste for seasoning and adjust to your palate if needed.
- When the chilli is close to ready, prepare your garnishes and serve. You could ladle the chilli into individual bowls and garnish, or, if you're eating family style, set the pot of chilli con carne at the centre of the table and the garnishes in small bowls with spoons, so guests can help themselves.
Nutrition
Do let us know if you make our chili con carne recipe in the comments below as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
This was bloody good too, mate. I made the works – the chilli con carne, the guacamole, the salsa, and nachos. All ace. Will definitely be digging into the rest of your recipe archive.
Very impressive! Hope you had some help, LOL? Pleased to hear you’ll be trying more recipes out. Do let us know how they turn out. Thanks so much for dropping by!
Excellent recipe! You mentioned adding beans to your recipe an hour before finishing, but how much? Are they dried or canned beans?
Hi Nova, thanks for the kind words on behalf of Terence :) Terence had a note in the text about how an ‘authentic’ old-school Texan chilli con carne doesn’t have beans only beef, but how he sometimes likes to add a can of kidney beans an hour before the end. A ‘cowboy chilli’ does include beans, apparently. As there are plenty of authentic Texan recipes on the web and this is Terence’s take on a chilli con carne, I’ve gone ahead and edited the text and recipe to make that clearer and added a 400 g can of kidney beans as ‘optional’. 400 g is the standard size here in Australia :)