Texas Chili Recipe! This Texas style chili is bursting with meat and spice, and only takes 20 minutes to come together. Perfect for game days or an easy weeknight family dinner!
What is Texas Chili?
Texas Chili, or what Texans refer to as Texas Red, is a chili made of meat, no beans allowed, and loaded up with spices for a super flavorful dish. While all Texans can agree that there are no beans in chili, they are pretty well split on if there is tomatoes in chili or not.
With this recipe I wanted to create a quick and easy version that the average person could whip together for a weeknight dinner. Cooking a Texas Chili the traditional way would involve creating a chile paste out of dried chiles and cooking the chili over the course of a day.
So to make this recipe approachable for an easy to make family dinner, we are going to use ground spices to create the flavor profile. We will use a mixture of tomato sauce and beef broth to create the base. And we will be using ground beef as the meat. Again, no beans invited.
Can this chili be made ahead of time and frozen?
Yes! This Texas Chili recipe is perfect to save as a freezer meal.
How to freeze chili:
- Cook and cool the chili completely. Place the cooked chili in a shallow, wide container and place it in the refrigerator until cooled.
- Store the chili in quart size freezer bags. Make sure you remove all air from the bag while sealing.
- Label the bag with the name of the dish and the date it was made.
- When placing the bag in the freezer make sure it is laid flat and not crowded, we want the chili to freeze quickly. You can store the Texas Chili in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- To defrost, place the bag in the refrigerator the night before, or the morning that you plan to heat it up for dinner. This will allow time for it to defrost.
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Texas Chili Recipe (Only 20 Minutes)
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 (15 ounce can) tomato sauce
- 1 cup beef broth
- 2 tbsp chili powder
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tbsp onion powder
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
- Cook the ground beef in large pot or dutch oven over medium heat, until fully cooked, no longer pink, for about 7 minutes.
- Drain the grease. Return the pot to the stove.
- Add the tomato paste, tomato sauce, and beef stock. Stir to combine.
- Add the seasonings. Cover and simmer over medium heat for the next 10 minutes.
- Serve warm!
Equipment
Notes
- Cook and cool the chili completely. Place the cooked chili in a shallow, wide container and place it in the refrigerator until cooled.
- Store the chili in quart size freezer bags. Make sure you remove all air from the bag while sealing.
- Label the bag with the name of the dish and the date it was made.
- When placing the bag in the freezer make sure it is laid flat and not crowded, we want the chili to freeze quickly. You can store the Texas Chili in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- To defrost, place the bag in the refrigerator the night before, or the morning that you plan to heat it up for dinner. This will allow time for it to defrost.
Nutrition
Just made this, and it turned out delicious!!! We Had everything on hand so it didn’t even require a trip to the Market! What a great way to welcome Fall! Thank you!!!
Can you do this in a slow cooker?
Yes you can! Simply brown the meat in a skillet then add the ingredients to the slow cooker.
Got burned by automatically doubling this with the 2x button above. This probably explains why other reviewer found it too soupy. Instead of 2 15 oz cans Tit said 2-30oz cans.
Oh no!! I’m so sorry about that. The calculations are done automatically and I unfortunately am unable to control how it calculates. My apologies for the recipe not turning out!
I left out the onion and halved the chili powder to suit our families tastes and it was great. I’ve been searching for a no bean recipe for awhile now and this got devoured by a picky husband, 4yr, 2yr and 1yr old. I’ve never made it with beef broth before and growing up we always used tomato juice instead of sauce. This was so much darn better than the midwestern pot of beans and beef that I grew up with it.
In the ingredients it says beef broth, but in the instructions it says beef stock. Does it matter which one we use?
No it doesn’t 🙂
Ah, someone who knows about chili. I have no made this yet, but this is the recipe I have used for almost 60 years. NO beans allowed, although you can serve the chili over beans and rice and top it with cheese. And cumin is essential.
Ah, someone who knows about chili. This is the recipe I have used for almost 60 years. NO beans allowed, although you can serve the chili over beans and rice and top it with cheese. And cumin is essential.
I’m making this right now and it’s really soupy despite about 20 minutes of simmering so far. I followed the recipe so I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong. Maybe needs the smaller can of tomato sauce.
Hi Laura. What size tomato sauce did you use? The recipe calls for the 15 ounce can. I have made this several times and it has never been “soupy”. Maybe you added some extra broth?
Yum! Haven’t had frito pie in ages…