12 beef chili con carne recipes

Cheap easy chili made with ground beef, red kidney beans, green beans, corn, tomato juice, and chili seasoning. A budget-friendly pantry chili ready in 25 minutes.

Four pounds of diced sirloin, three jalapeños, crushed garlic, and cumin make this beanless chili a heavyweight contender. Thick, meaty, and built to win any cookoff pot you enter.

Mexican meatballs (albondigas) made with three meats, corn tortillas soaked in milk, cumin, and oregano, simmered in red chili sauce and beef broth. A traditional Southwestern appetizer or main dish.

Caribou chili built on lean wild game, red wine, garlic, and a heavy hand of chili powder, then slow-simmered and rested overnight so the meat turns tender and the spices deepen.

Reno Red competition-style chili with coarse-ground beef, dried red chiles, cumin, oregano brewed in beer, and masa flour. No beans, all meat, pure heat.

Wild game chili with tender venison, beer, warm spices, and masa flour for authentic thickness: slow-simmered until rich, rested overnight for deeper flavor, serves twelve hunters.

Hearty Tex-Mex beef casserole loaded with creamed corn, green chilies, and tomatoes under a crunchy cheddar cracker topping. One dish, big bold Southwest flavor.

Cheddar olive tamale pie layers ground beef, canned tamales, corn, and chopped olives in a chili-spiked casserole topped with sharp aged cheddar. A freezer-friendly weeknight casserole that bakes hands-off.

Tex-Mex bake with a crushed corn chip crust, seasoned ground beef with green chilies, tomato sauce, and melted Monterey Jack cheese. An easy weeknight casserole.

Texas-style chili con carne with diced beef, whole red chili pods, paprika, and a cornmeal-flour thickener. No beans, no tomato, just deep meaty heat from a long slow simmer.

Authentic Spanish-American chili con carne made with cubed beef, beef suet, and whole dried red chile peppers reconstituted and pulped into a smoky, deeply flavored bowl of red. A traditional no-bean chili built on real chiles, not powder.

Old-school Texas chili con carne built on rehydrated ancho and pequin chiles, cubed beef, cumin, and oregano. No tomatoes, no beans, no shortcuts. Just pure chile-forward heat the way the Lone Star State intended.