Dad’s Three Bean Chili 08/30/2022
7 quart crock pot.
List of ingredients: Preferably brand name ingredients. And yes some of the ingredients come from cans but feel free to cook them from scratch.
Ground beef….not ground chuck….80/20---2.5 to 3 pounds give or take
Jimmy dean’s hot sausage – normal roll
Lea and Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce
1 Onion medium sized white onion
1 Jalapeño pepper (optional)
1 can (small) of Contadina tomato paste
1 can of Armor chili with beans
Butter
Chili powder
Garlic minced or Garlic power
Small jar of mushrooms (optional)
Salt
Black Pepper
Brown sugar
An assortment of different kinds of chili beans 7 or 8 cans of beans (I use Bush’s or Brooks chili beans) You are going to use two cans of red chili beans and three cans of pinto chili beans, one can of Armor chili with beans, just dump the cans in, beans and juice. One can of Great Northern beans...but strain the juice out of it or you use Bush’s White Chili Beans.) One or two cans of Brooks Chili hot beans, to season to taste. Have a couple of extra cans of chili beans if you need it. Which means you will need 10 cans of beans. You can add hot chili beans later if you want to increase the heat a little.
How to prepare and cook
1. Cut up the onion into slices….not too small….half moon shapes. Sauté onions lightly in butter for a few minutes in separate pan. Medium heat, do not burn the butter. (optional mushrooms) You can sauté some mushrooms with the onions. Mushrooms from a small jar or half of a taller jar.
2. Brown the hamburger and sausage together, work it into small chunks in a skillet. Barely brown until there is just a little pink showing here and there. You will cook it the rest of the way later. Five shakes of salt and eight shakes of pepper. Add the sautéed onions (and optional mushrooms) cooked in butter and all in with meat in the skillet for two minutes. Do not pour out the juice from the meat. It all goes into the crock pot. Lots of favor in the juice. Turn the Crock-pot on high.
The rest does not have an order…..you are just dumping it in there. Use regular kitchen tablespoons for all measuring.
3. One can of Contadina tomato paste. They are small cans.
4. Half a stick of butter? This was added when you poured the sautéed onions cooked in butter into the meat. No extra butter needed.
5. Four tablespoons of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce.
6. Two heaping tablespoon of chili powder.
7. One heaping tablespoon of minced garlic or garlic powder.
8. One heaping tablespoons of light brown sugar.
9. One level tablespoon of salt to the Crock Pot.
10. One level tablespoon of black pepper to the Crock Pot.
11. Optional for hotter chili….Slice up one good sized Jalapeño pepper into ½ inch round slices….not too small. Remove peppers when the chili is hot enough to taste. Usually after 1 ½ to 2 hours.
12. Dump the cans of beans into the crock pot, juice and all.
13. Stir up ingredients.
Cook on high for two hours and on warm for an hour. Stir every half an hour. Season to taste towards the end….a little bit at a time. If you want the Chili hotter just add another can of Brooks Chili Hot Beans.
This makes 7 quarts of chili. Sorry I cannot say it is cheap.
Bon Appétit
This is actually Western Chili or Chuck Wagon Chili because Texas or Mexican chili does not have beans. Spelled Chilli in Britain and Chile in most everywhere else.