Dakota's Texas Style Chili

Hi, I'm the author of the recipe. If you like chili with some zip but not too much heat, try omitting the cayenne pepper. I tried that last night and it was perfect!

This is a wonderful recipe! It was nice to find a recipe for chili that didn't include beans. This is no wimpy chili either, because it has hunks of beef in a spicy yet extraordinarily flavorful sauce. We froze the extras & when thawed we heated, added some fresh shredded cheese & sour cream & it was still great. We will definitely make this again! By the way, take the submitters advice & make the delicious cornbread that was mentioned, the two recipes make for a great meal.

I knew this recipe would be pretty "spicy" (too much so for the kids) so I only added 2 chipotle peppers. Are those sirens I hear?...Yep...this is definitely 5 alarm chili. Yikes, my burning mouth! LOL. It was good but not kid friendly. To save my kids I had to add the following to tone down the heat: 1 can tomato sauce and 1/4 cup of sugar. I also felt the chili needed salt so I added a few teaspoons of the kosher variety. I served with shredded cheddar, cilantro, sour cream and corn bread. Much better. Oh, and have an ice cold glass of milk at the ready to extinguish further "fires". Thanks for sharing the recipe. It was fun!

My wife's company has an Annual Chili Cook Off and this won first prize! The only thing I changed was to add some of liquid smoke with the peppers. Hands down this is one of the best True Texas chilis I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying. Thank you Dakota. For those that dont like the heat as much... cook it the day before you are going to eat it. The heat mellows and the flavor comes out more.

Fantastic! I live in Texas, and yes, no beans in our chili, please! Very good recipe, my only modification was to chop up a serrano pepper and spice it up a bit more. Everyone in the house, including guests, went crazy for this one! Well done.

Not sure if I had problems because I halved it, or if it was because I finished it in a crock pot after browning everything, but this was just an "okay" recipe for me. It was a little thin so I added more cornmeal to make it "chili" instead of "stew." It also needed a decent amount of salt and a few healthy squirts of ketchup (no, not joking, Texans put ketchup in EVERYTHING). After that it was pretty good. I also ommited the cayenne - thanks for that tip.

This chili recipe was delicious! My family loved it! Instead of beef chuck, I added ground bison and skipped on the cayenne pepper and oregano to make it more kid-friendly. I added beef broth instead of water. I will do this one again.Very tasty =)

I was looking for a low carb chili recipe & this fit the bill. I do have to agree with 5th Sister...holy cow was that hot (but again it was expected)! I did use beef broth instead of water and mine was not runny at all, maybe because I simmered it for the full 3 hours. Thank you Dakota01 for sharing, my husband loved this recipe!

This is really excellent. We used brisket for a meat base and served with white rice. Thanks for sharing this super recipe.

Tasty & different from tomato based chili. I added kosher salt, cocoa powder and a bit of brown sugar. It was a bit on the thin side since I cooked it in a slow cooker, so I added two more tablespoons of cornmeal and let it cook on high with the lid off for the last 30 minutes or so.

Even though we truly like hot & spicy foods, this was a little much. It is definitely not a recipe you would use when company is coming unless you know for sure they like extra hot foods. I'm all for Texas style chili but from what I've eaten in the past, this isn't it. Sorry..

I usually cannot stand chili, but everyone in my family wanted chili for dinner at hunting camp so I decided to make this recipe (it was my turn to cook). This was without a doubt the best chili ever. Even the bean lovers in my family (which is everyone but me) begged for more. I kicked it up a bit more by cutting the chipolte chili's down and adding 3 minced Jalepenos and 2 habenero's. it was not overpowering by any means and actually gave it a real nice flavor. Truly is a great chili.

This recipe is excellent! The only change I made was to brown the meat in the dutch oven , with the onions and spices, prior to adding the beer and water. I made rice to put it over and added cheese and sour cream. This is a recipe I'll make again!

This recipe is spectacular! It is not for everyone, though. I'm a native new mexican with a taste for red/green chile. I used special reserve hot new mexican red chile, which surely contributed to the heat of it. I wound up adding some brown sugar and cheddar cheese as a garnish to take off some of the heat. I will definitely make this again! (I also used an extra beer in place of some of the water.) :)

Just wanted to let everyone know, this chili is awesome! My husband just won first place in in a chili cook-off with this!!! All three judges voted his number 1, on appearance, flavor and texture. You can't go wrong with this one! Thanks for a great recipe.

My pot of chili is on the stove and smells wonderful. I don't have a review at this time as we have not tasted but I wanted to share my discovery .... as I was about to open the THIRD can of Chipotle peppers I re-read the recipe again for the tenth time ..... the recipe calls for 4-PEPPERS. Not 4 -CANS of peppers. Hope this helps. Also, I found it easy to remove seeds with gloves on, knife in one hand .... on a cutting board slice the pepper gently and used fingers to open up pepper and remove/slide off seeds. Ok, I guess I have to rate the recipe before I can submit my comments so I am going to think the best and rate it 5-stars.

This was absolutely awesome chili! We had a "It's Chili Today!" luncheon at work and we had 5 different kinds of chili. I chose to make this one because several of my co-workers can't eat beans. I was a little skeptical at first, but it smelled wonderful! It was the first chili completely gone! Huge hit! I used a bottom round roast I had bought on sale and used beef broth for most of the liquid. I did brown the beef cubes just to impart a little more flavor. Otherwise, made it as written. Have forwarded to my son who is a "chili nut"! I know he will up the heat, as I will probably do next time, and believe me, there will definitely be a next time!!

Great flavor, totally forgot to de-seed the chipoltles though!!! Had to add some sugar and a can of tomato paste to rescue it but still excellent!!!

This is very much like my own recipe and is very good, like mine. I did add a tablespoon of basil pesto. I learned to make authentic Mexican chili in New Mexico from a Mexican chef, but whereas she bought whole dried red chilis, seeded them and simmered in water at least an hour then food-processed it, I just buy dried red chili powder.

good flavor but way too spicy, I used half of all spices and it was still a mouth burner,

So good! I used ground beef since that's all I had on hand so I skipped the water and used only 1/2 bottle of beer. Was my first time trying a chili that wasn't tomato based but it was really good and the kids ate it up. Served it with cornbread as recommended and it was a hit.

Very good chili. I was looking for a real chili that didn't have beans, and found this recipe. I scaled it for the two of us but kept the bacon the same (of course!). Also, we are careful about not having dishes that are really spicy and hot, so I omitted the cayenne and adobo, and instead used mild green chilies and a red pepper, and lots of sweet onion. Also, I didn't have beer, but did have about 1/3 bottle of red wine, so used all of that. Oh, and I forgot the corn meal, but really, after simmering for almost 2 hours (smaller portion), the chili was nice and thick - could have eaten it with a fork. Thanks for this one - I'll do this again for sure. :)

I almost always make changes to this... not because it needs changing, but I just feel the need to tweak. a wonderful recipe that I make every New Years Eve to rave reviews from the neighbors we have over every year for the past ten... great flavor. GREAT spice. delicious. had to give some away this year. add a dollop of sour cream and fresh red peppers and diced jalapeno. mmmm

I tried it, found it was too hot.

This was way to hot for my whimpy palette but I will make it again and cut back on the heat. A few things I need some clarification on. Do you add the bacon or is it just for the grease? Also, the chipotle peppers - what size can and do you add the Adobe sauce to the pot? The peppers were tough to seed because they were so soft. How did everyone else seed them? I ended up rinsing them to get the seeds and membrane out. All in all, if you like heat, then this will float your boat

Not overly impressed with this one. Very watery. I followed the recipe & instructions to the letter. All I taste is the chili powder & the chipotle peppers. I used chicken stock instead of water. Meh.

I must be in the minority on this one. We thought this was just okay. I didn't make any changes, so maybe we just don't like Texas style chili.

One of the only recipes calling itself "Texas chili" that truly is. Good job.

I made a few revisions, omitted the bacon but will try next time as it sounds amazing. Used less spices but added a ketchup apple cider sauce and cooked it in my new instant pot pressure cooker done in 45 minutes. Flavors intensify under pressure. It was deliciously sweet and spicy

Made this for last Friday's baseball wild card games and it didn't make it through the ninth inning! As far as the spice level, I'd call it "three-star" spicy, which is just what I like. Delicious.

This is some wicked good chili but man is it hot hope you have a towel on stand by because its gonna make you sweat. I used a lot of cheese in the chili to calm it down some and served it with chili flavored Frito's for a little some extra.

Followed the directions and all I got was a watery tasting stew - I don't recommend this recipe.

Great authentic Texas style chili recipe. I've made this recipe about four times now over the last five years, typically when there is a bitter cold front coming through. Low and slow is the game. Don't rush it. Let that pot simmer for hours to get that beef to break down nice and tender, stirring occasionally. You'll thank yourself. Only thing I change is I do three cans of chipotles instead of four.