Awesome Old Mexico Chili

This is honest chili. No beans, no fancy footwork, just chunks of stewing beef braising low and slow with tomato sauce, paste, and stewed tomatoes until the beef falls apart at the nudge of a spoon. The triple-tomato trick is what gives this chili its body: paste delivers concentrated umami, sauce smooths the texture, and stewed tomatoes throw in chunks that keep things from feeling like baby food.

Chili powder and a generous shot of red hot pepper sauce do the seasoning work. Add more hot sauce if you like fire, or leave it gentle for the kids. The slow cooker does the rest, eight hours of unattended simmering that breaks down the beef collagen into rich, lip-coating gelatin. By dinner the kitchen smells like a Texas roadhouse.

Serve over rice, with cornbread, or piled on a baked potato. Or stuffed into a taco shell, the chili-head’s secret weapon.

Chef Tips

• Brown the beef cubes in a hot skillet before they hit the slow cooker. The Maillard crust adds depth no amount of long cooking can replicate.
• Use chuck for cubed beef. It has the right fat and connective tissue to stay tender after 8 hours.
• Add the salt at the start, but taste and adjust the hot sauce at the end. Heat builds during long cooking.
• A square of dark chocolate or a tablespoon of cocoa powder stirred in during the last hour adds the missing complexity that real Old Mexico chili leans on.
• Skim the fat off the top before serving. There will be some.

Variations

• Add beans: stir in a can of drained pinto or kidney beans during the last hour if you swing that way.
• Smoky: throw in a chipotle in adobo with the sauce for a smoky backbone.
• Beer-braised: replace 1 cup of the tomato sauce with a dark Mexican beer like Negra Modelo.