A Deliciously Tasty Chili Soup Recipe
Chili soup is a comfort food found across the United States when the weather starts to cool off. If you choose, this accumulation of ground meat, tomatoes, peppers, and beans are all blended with warm seasonings to keep you cozy during some of the coldest days. If we are being honest, though, you can enjoy a good chili any time of the year since it can cover a large group and it can cook really fast.
About Chili Soup
There is a big debate on whether you add beans to this chili soup, but spoiler alert: it is delicious either way. This dish is very affordable and can be doubled to feed larger groups. This meal started as a way to feed families with just a handful of ingredients and has turned into an American classic found across the country. However, chili may be served differently and accompanied by different sides depending on where you visit.
What to Serve With Chili Soup
If you want a classic southern feel with your chili soup, bake some fresh cornbread and cut it into squares. Most folks down South will take this and dip into the chili, making it a complete meal.
If you want a more Midwest take on Chili soup, serve your chili over spaghetti noodles. This dish is very hearty and can spread out the chili soup even further with this addition.
No matter which side you go with, you want to have the following toppings available:
- Hot Sauce
- Sour Cream
- Shredded Cheese
- Green Onions
- Freshly diced tomatoes
- Jalapeno slices
All of these different toppings allow your diners to make the chili their own, cooling it off if they like or making it spicier for them without impacting the entire pot of chili soup. When you go for jalapeno slices, you can choose fresh ones that have more heat or pickled ones that are found in every market and can be closed and saved in the fridge for future pots
Gather Your Ingredients
Once you have decided to go with chili soup for your next meal, make sure you grab the following ingredients from the market:
- One pound of ground hamburger meat
- Two cans of either pinto beans or kidney beans
- Six cups of beef broth
- Three cans of diced tomatoes
- Two diced green bell peppers
- One diced onion
- Two packs of chili seasoning
- One teaspoon of sugar
Substitutions
When you are gathering ground meat, you can opt for ground pork, turkey, or even venison if you have some in your freezer that you need to use. Since ground turkey and ground venison are very lean, you will need to pair it with either some pork or beef to get the fat content you need for this chili.
If you see cans of chili beans that are already seasoned, feel free to grab those instead of the others. You can even opt for black beans if that is your preference. For those who do not want beans at all, take them out and add in another pound of meat to your chili.
The chili seasoning packs are really convenient because you do not have to measure out the seasonings, but if you have all those seasons at home, you can mix them together instead of using these packs. In a small bowl, just a add a teaspoon of garlic, cumin, black pepper, paprika and a tablespoon of chili powder for every pound of meat you use.
Begin Building Your Soup
Now that you have your ingredients for chili soup, it’s time to begin.
1. Brown Your Meat
You want first to start browning the meat that you have. Put this meat in a saute pan on the stove and turn the burner to medium. It will take about ten minutes for this to cook through. Make sure you break up your meat into bite size pieces as it cooks.
2. Prepare Your Veggies
While the meat is cooking down, dice up your onion first and add it to the meat once it is cut up. It can start cooking down with the meat.
Grab your peppers, wash them off, and then begin dicing them. Like the onion, you can add it to the meat as you go to get them tender.
3. Build Your Base
On another burner, grab your large soup pot and turn the burner to medium. Open your cans of tomatoes and beans and then add them to the pot. This will start to get warm and begin cooking while the meat finishes up.
4. Drain Your Meat
Once the meat and veggies have cooked through, make sure to drain the excess fat from the pot. Take your meat and veggie mixture, and add it to the big soup pot with the canned tomatoes and beans.
5. Bring it All Together
Once you have added the meat to the soup base, add in your seasonings, sugar, and beef broth. Give your chili a good stir and turn the heat up to high. You want to reach a rolling boil on this chili.
6. Simmer And Serve
Once the chili starts boiling, turn the burner down to a simmer and let the chili finish marrying the flavors together for about ten minutes. During this time, you can cook a pot of noodles if you want to serve it with your chili soup or take out that delicious cornbread that you may have started baking before browsing your meat.
Once your chili is ready, ladle it into bowls and allow your diners to chop their chili with whatever toppings they choose. Some may want to cool their chili down with cheese and sour cream, while others just pile on the heat with hot sauce and jalapenos. You might even have a few diners add all of it to their chili bowl.
Store Your Leftovers
Once your chili is ready to serve, go ahead and turn off the burner so that it can cool down. If you have any leftovers, you can store them in the fridge for the next three days safely. The chili can be warmed back on the stove at once, or you can portion it out and heat it in the microwave as you want it.
You can also store your chili in the freezer, which a lot of families do when they have a lot of meat that needs to be cooked. In freezer safe bags, this soup will last through the next three months. Just make sure that you thaw it out first before you cook and serve the next time.
