(Items in italics are additions I've made to the original recipe.)
- 1.5 lbs ground beef
- Your saved bacon grease from the freezer
(The link is to a 6 second video I did on how to properly filter/save bacon grease for cooking with later.) - 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
(Or use fresh if you want it to take forever to make.) - 1 16 oz can of light
red kidney beans - 1 16 oz can of pinto beans
(Or you can cook pinto beans with 1 lb of ham hock for an even better experience and get a bean meal out of the deal, but again it will then take forever.) - 1 8 oz can of tomato sauce
- 9 oz to 12 oz of real bacon bits
(It's even better if you cook bacon yourself and crumble it up.) - 1 large green pepper chopped
- 1 cup celery diced
- 1.5 cups onions chopped
(I just use frozen diced onions for this, no one enjoys cutting onions.) - 5 oz of Velveeta cheese cut up into dice sized cubes or smaller
(Do not go overboard on this, I've tried 10 oz and 8 oz, both were way too much.) - 3.5 tbsp minced garlic
- 4 tbsp chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp bhut jolokia (ghost pepper) dust
(This is only if you want it a lot more spicy, I tend to leave this out so more people other than myself can enjoy the chili.) - 1.5 tbsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
What you need to do:
- Melt a large portion (two or three golf ball sized chunks) of bacon grease in a large skillet.
- Brown the ground beef in the bacon grease on medium-high heat.
- Drain the about 95% of the meat grease from the pan.
- Add all of the ingredients to a large cooking pot.
- Rinse all four cans with a small amount of water (about 1/8 can each) and add the water to the chili.
- Stir extremely well and set heat to high.
- Bring chili to a boil.
- Set heat all the way low and cover the pot.
- Simmer 5 hours or longer as needed stirring occasionally.
- Add your favorite toppings (I like cheddar and oyster crackers) and enjoy!
- Leave me a comment below on any alterations you make to the recipe and how it went.
- Share this post with all of your fellow chili lovers.
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