This is my Gamer Chili recipe — a modified version of one that Rob Donoghue (there he is again!) threw at me earlier this decade. It got the “Gamer Chili” moniker for being very easy to throw together the morning before a game, and with a big enough crock pot (I usually do a double batch, but my slow-cooker is pretty high capacity), it can easily feed a table of 6-8 hungry gamers. I may have posted it somewhere before, but it’s always good to get out there.
Variants include throwing in a cup of ditalini or macaroni pasta half an hour before it’s done, which can soak up liquid when the chili is being especially wet. The presence of the pasta can also mitigate the feeling of “denseness”.
Hardware
- Slow cooker (high capacity if you have it)
- Measuring spoons and cup
Software
- Ground beef (1-2 lbs depending on “meatiness” desired), browned and drained separately
- 1 jar of medium salsa
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 1 6oz can of tomato paste
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 yellow pepper, diced
- 1 green pepper, diced
- 1-2 onions, chopped
- 1 can of (dark) red kidney beans
- 2-4 cloves minced garlic
- 2 teaspoons white sugar
- 1/4-1/2 cup tequila (proportional to beef)
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- 2 tablespoons dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon (saigon) cinnamon
Procedure
Brown ground beef separately, draining off the fat. Combine with other ingredients in a hot pot. Cook High for 3-4 (you can double this and go low, but the flavors blend almost too much, and our experience with it is that the high method works best, keeping the flavors more distinct and “bright”). Serve, eat.
10 Comments
I’m also fond of tossing in a bag of corn a half hour before its done, but corn is not always to everyone’s taste (and, when I’m feeling health conscious, it works pretty well with ground turkey too).
I was recently flashing back to the land of dollar California Rolls. The housing may have been too expensive, but man, we did ok with the gamer chow, didn’t we?
Yeah, the corn’s an interesting approach, and one I should have mentioned. One technique with corn I’ve found — gotten from a poblano corn chowder recipe I really adore — is to skip the frozen stuff, and carve the kernels off of some cobs. Hold that corn aside until a few minutes before serving, and toss it in with about five minutes to go. The corn heats up but doesn’t really cook, so you end up with these bright crunchy bursts of sweet corn flavor. It’d be interesting to try that with the chili.
I miss California gaming something fierce.
Though I should ask: how does the tequila work out? That’s the one ingredient that stands out as something I haven’t tried, and I hate the liquor so much that I can’t really envision the flavor component.
Well, first off, let’s establish a baseline: I enjoy tequila quite a bit, though I’ll be among the first to admit that the cheaper tequilas out there can be pretty awful. Cheap default tequila used in margaritas in many a restaurant is not something I enjoy, for example. I’ve gotten to a point, tho, where I enjoy drinking tequila straight. For a while it was the somewhat pricey Patron Silver that Christie had around, but the more affordable Jose Cuervo Especial Gold has been doing well for me once we ran out of the Patron — and it’s the Cuervo that I tend to use for margaritas at home, and in this chili.
Also, if you’ve had chili I’ve made for gamer events in my house (and I think you have), you’ve already had it with the tequila in.
There are a few key components of the resulting flavor for me, built on top of the tomato-y, meaty base. Cinnamon’s probably the biggest one, as I think it’s the most identifiable component of what results. If you stick with the high heat shorter time period method, the bell peppers play into the results as well — a longer cook-time can muddy their presence. And for me at least, there’s the tequila. I get it as an aromatic component of the result, and I think the alcohol angle helps to brighten both the tomato and the sweet bell pepper elements nicely. I’ve been happy to use it as part of the recipe.
Pardon my chili snobbery, but I’ll quibble. (Which is, after all, half the fun with chili.)
No beans. Full stop.
I prefer beer to tequila.
Here’s where I must really stomp my feet: You cannot make a great chili with just ground beef. (Not coincidentally, same goes for meatballs.) It cannot be done. You can make a good chili to be sure, but not a great one. By all means, put some ground beef in. But don’t stop there. Mixing and matching different cuts from different animals is part of the fun and science to chili making. I like to add some lean whole beef cut into small cubes, maybe half-inch. Then, you must add some sausage. Remove the casing, break it up a little, and toss it in. Chorizo is great. Andouille of course. Spicy and/or sweet Italian. Linguica. I could go on, but the drool risks shorting out my keyboard. Tweaking the sausage is like fiddling with the equalizer on your stereo.
You can stop with the sausage, but I like to add something in the cured-smoked-pork family. Bacon or one of its more exotic counterparts. That’s going to add some nice smoke to the dish and that luxurious pork fat essence.
I don’t much like to add carbs to my chili, but I’ll sprinkle on some shredded cheese and diced onions to finish.
Oh, man, do I want to run home and make some chili tonight. Thanks for sharing, Fred.
I expect everyone to come off differently with chili, and with the same level of foot-stomping advocacy you’ll see in Star Trek vs. Star Wars arguments. There’s too much variation out there for folks to agree.
I’ve really come to love the beans; I do NOT like the taste of beer, so beer in my chili is increases the chances I’ll set it aside as too bitter.
That said, I do love playing with the meat options — it’s just that for the baseline, ground beef (which folks including Rob correctly read as code for “you can swap in ground turkey instead if you want”) is a fine place to start.
I LOVE sausage, so I may have to have a go at doing an andouille chili at some point. And I’ve been happy to encounter bacon in chilis when I’ve tried ‘em. That said, the andouille I tend to buy has a real baconny nose to it when it cooks up, so I may consider that to be my route to getting it all in one.
I tend to eat my bowl of this chili with cheese and sour cream, but I figure that too is in the realm of “everyone’s taste is different”.
Gotta agree with no beans and the beer.
I use a recipe from New Mexico, which is based off actual steaks I then cut into small cubes and cook. The other ingredients range from three kinds of peppers, capsicum pepper, and cactus, in addition to the spices.
VERY good. VERY hot. As an added bonus, it can be made with vegetarian meat substitutes for my vegetarian wife and friends, and still tastes damned good; however, without the meat fat in there to absorb some of the heat, it runs a little hotter.
Hey there, I can’t wait to try this! I too am anti bean in chili but guess what? I just leave out the beans and add more meat! Dang, that was hard. Anyway, I’ve never tried chili with tequila before though I am fond of using bourbon. As my husband was packing up my five different varieties of tequila he mentioned that you had posted this recipe. I may try this on Sunday.
Thanks for the recipe! I made this last weekend, using half ground beef and half chorizo-style sausage (& some extra bacon), and the results were delicious.
Wait…there was chili and I missed it?!?!?