Chili with Kidney Beans

Chili with kidney beans is the kind of crowd-size pot you’d make for a tailgate, a family reunion, or a Sunday-supper that feeds you all week. The four pounds each of ground beef and red kidney beans put this firmly in big-batch territory, and the long covered simmer is what marries everything together into a thick, deeply seasoned chili.

The recipe leans on a few classic touches that elevate it past a standard ground beef chili: garlic browned in oil to perfume the base, whole cloves and a bay leaf for warm aromatic depth, and a single teaspoon of vinegar at the end that brightens and rounds the long-cooked tomato. The vinegar trick is what separates a flat chili from one with real dimension.

Chef Tips

• Brown the beef in batches if your pot isn’t huge. Crowded meat steams instead of browning, and you lose the fond that flavors the whole pot.
• Cook onions and peppers in some of the rendered drippings, not fresh oil. That’s where the meaty depth comes from.
• Fish out the whole cloves and bay leaf before serving. They’ve done their job and nobody wants to bite into one.
• Make it the day before. Chili improves overnight in the fridge as the spices mellow and the flavors deepen.

Variations

• Stir in a square of dark chocolate or a tablespoon of cocoa powder near the end for a Cincinnati-leaning richness.
• Swap half the kidney beans for black or pinto for a more textured pot.
• Add a chopped chipotle in adobo with the tomato paste for smoky heat.