The great chili debate of 2015. Beans or no beans?

[crowbuster]

Beans beans the musical fruit, the more we eat the more we toot, the more we toot the better we feel, so lets have beans for every meal !!! beans. Gotta have lots-o-beans in the chili !!

[tomme boy]

Red, black and northern beans go in mine.

[texassako]

Eww, no beans should be in chili. The only good use for beans is baked, beans and sausage, or red beans and rice.

[MaryB]

NO beans! Not much tomato either! 2 pounds hand chopped chuck, chili powder(regular and my homemade nuclear grade), onions, garlic, only an 8 ounce can tomato sauce, beef stock or base, beer, salt if needed. Brown meat in bacon fat, then saute onions and garlic until soft,add the main wimpy chili powder and saute that until fragrant, add the meat back along with a bottle or two of good ale, add the tomato sauce, add the beef stock or base(I use base). You want the meat to be just covered. When the meat is about half done I add a teaspoon of my homemade chili powder that is a blend of 12 dried chili's. Simmer until meat is tender, serve OVER BEANS if desired. Lots of cornbread, crackers, whatever you like to eat with chili.

[Col4570]

Hope this does,nt cause an international incident but I am making Chilie con Carne today,Minced (ground)Steak,Tomatoes,Red Beans,Cannillini Beans,Onions,Ceyenne Peppers.Served with Rice It will taste good,it always does.With Garlic Bread,I know you Texicans might not like this recipe but hell I am way out of range here.

[SciFiJim]

Hope this does,nt cause an international incident but I am making Chilie con Carne today,Minced (ground)Steak,Tomatoes,Red Beans,Cannillini Beans,Onions,Ceyenne Peppers.Served with Rice It will taste good,it always does.With Garlic Bread,I know you Texicans might not like this recipe but hell I am way out of range here.

Puts the bean/no beans thing into perspective!

Actually, it sounds like "red beans and rice" with some meat in it. Which is VERY good eating!

[coloraydo]

Beans. Beans. Must have me some Beans.

[wlc]

Oh man, it has to have beans. We like a combination of black beans and kidney beans.

Us too. Just made such a pot of that culinary methane factory this past week. BTW, it also has to be hot enough to make sweat pop out on my forehead by the second or third bite or it aint spicy enough.

[Lonegun1894]

If someone else is cooking, I will eat it either way (and like it!). I mean, after eating my own cooking all these years, I have no right whatsoever to complain about anyone elses. However, if I am cooking, it gets no beans, and I make it spicy enough that my Mexican friends complain about it being too spicy. I keep being told that either I "aint right in the head" or that I "don't cook like a white boy". Oh well, more for me.

[Cmm_3940]

NO beans! Not much tomato either! 2 pounds hand chopped chuck, chili powder(regular and my homemade nuclear grade), onions, garlic, only an 8 ounce can tomato sauce, beef stock or base, beer, salt if needed. Brown meat in bacon fat, then saute onions and garlic until soft,add the main wimpy chili powder and saute that until fragrant, add the meat back along with a bottle or two of good ale, add the tomato sauce, add the beef stock or base(I use base). You want the meat to be just covered. When the meat is about half done I add a teaspoon of my homemade chili powder that is a blend of 12 dried chili's. Simmer until meat is tender, serve OVER BEANS if desired. Lots of cornbread, crackers, whatever you like to eat with chili.

Mary,

that sounds really, really good.

...But it ain't CHILI.

[Beagle333]

'Looks like with beans is pulling way ahead in the poll!

[NC_JEFF]

We refer to it as "chili beans" when its made as the main part of the meal and my wife uses pinto beans in her recipe. It is delicious. Anything simply referred to as "chili" is made in a smaller pot and goes on our hamburgers or hot dogs.

[Hickory]

Beans.
Beans add to the refinement of even the most perfect chilli.

[Col4570]

As a young man I was bedevilled with flatulatory discomfort after eating Beans but now I can consume vast quantities in dishes like chilie Con Carnie without the fear of being made a Hermit.I will go further and state that I admire the tolerance of my innards for welcoming those invasive ingredients.I used to think it was something I had said that caused folks to steer clear of me.

[texassako]

Puts the bean/no beans thing into perspective!

Actually, it sounds like "red beans and rice" with some meat in it. Which is VERY good eating!

I come from a long line of rice growers in southeast Texas. We eat everything on or with rice, including beanless chili.

[btroj]

Am I the only one who thinks this poll is a real gas?

[rosewood]

Beans, we need the fiber.

[MakeMineA10mm]

We call this a pot of beans.

We called it "Bean Soup." My dad loved "chili," so we ate it about once a week. Of course, it was a traditional Northern home-made recipe with hamburger, kidney beans, tomato paste, and that reddish-brown powder that comes in a paper package at the store with "chili powder" written on it. And, lots of water. When we went to Texas to visit a service friend, we had real Mexican and Texican food, and that changed everything. We still made the old recipe, because dad liked it, but we changed the name to "Bean Soup." REAL chili has no beans (and no tomatoes). If it had started off that way, it would've been called "Beans with chili peppers," but it wasn't. It was called CHILI!

I was a nerdy kid (as opposed to being a nerdy adult now) when we went to Texas way back when, and I did some researching (P.I. - Pre-Internet) and learned that the original chili recipe was mainly just reconstituted dry red chilis with some flavoring. Addition of meat came later (con Carne) as did changing/adding to the flavorings. This "real" historical chili is not too different than the red chili sauce you can get today as a toping in most Mexican restaurants. And, I find it to be really, really good, if made mellow enough that I can taste the rich flavors. Too spicy (for me) and it ruins the flavor as the spice covers too much of the seasoning, and it's probably not true to the original.

Now, being Yankees, mom did decide to play with the recipe after we got back from Texas and had perfected the "real Texas" chili made without beans or tomatoes. (Back in those days, it wasn't as easy to get real dried chilis up North here.) Dad said he missed his beans (good grief), and we all agreed that a thicker recipe might be better. Original red chili is thick but runny at the same time. Kind of like generic ketchup (but 1000x tastier). We started playing with additions, and came up with several good-tasting recipes, but I wouldn't call them chili. One used peanut butter as a thickener (you can't taste it), and in one, sticking with the Texican spirit of things, added refried beans. Yes, it's beans, but you can't see them, they thicken the chili up nicely, and they keep to the spirit of the Texican flavor pallet. (Another think we tried as a thickener was masa, again to keep with the origins of the dish.) Even though we tried to be true to it's roots, and even though the refried bean variety is my favorite, it's still Bean Soup, because it AIN'T chili!

I found a key to playing with the recipe is to start with dried red chilis and never let them become a minor part or flavoring. They need to be front and center, no matter what you add, for every bite. Most "Bean Soup" is an amalgamation of flavors and you never know with each spoonful what you're gonna taste as the main flavor of that bite. I don't care for that...

Eww, no beans should be in chili. The only good use for beans is baked, beans and sausage, or red beans and rice.

You forgot "re-fried," but I'm just pickin' nits with you. I love refried beans!

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I always make mine with beans

but I understand there is a certain cultural difference in regional chili

beans for some have the negative connotation of poor people food , even if it is just a regional thing now I believe it started as a social status thing

being a bean picker , just wasn't always cool probably not far from cotton picker

If it involves chili powder , pablono , jalapeno , or other peppers and is generally chilli like I will count it as chilli

yes, I Made my wife's favorite white chicken chilli yesterday , no tomatoes even , chicken , broth , pablano pepper ,onion , garlic , white navy bean , chick peas , heavy cream and sour cream , cumin , salt, pepper

last week it was my chili with black beans and red kidneys , tomatoes and ground beef , the week before it was my chili with venison and a batch of her's

around here you are were very likely to eat at a friends house and his mom made chili with macaroni in it and beans lots of beans , this was the depression era stretcher of meals add some noodles to any thing and it fed more on the cheap.

we joked and called it Yankee Chili even though we were hardly Yankees , but if you ever visited a Yankee historical site and paid close attention they cut corners any where it would not show to the outside one example is pull back the rug and find the beautiful hardwood flooring that you see stops 6 inches under the rug and it is box wood pine planks other things were open the door tho the second floor and see all the flooring was painted pine ,the oak stopped at the threshold of the door to the family space that visitors would not see.

chili here was also generally quite mild , remember we are mainly a bunch of Polish , German , Norwegian , Dutch , Finish , and Danish northern Europeans , in other words potatoes have a lot of flavor in our pallet so not much spice is needed. I thought my relatives liked things mild , then I met a finish girl in the UP she would eat a potato like an apple

[bear67]

"Chili Mess"--more Texas chili legend. Much of my mis-spent youth when not hunting or fishing was spent in the local livestock auctions of NE Texas. I attended the sale for the feel of the auction, sometimes to buy calves, but mostly for the Barn Cafe. Every sale facility had an attached cafe that was ran only on sale days usually and opened about 3 in the morning and ran until 2 or so hours after the last run of cattle be it at 5 pm or 2 or 3 am in the next morning. Run might vary from 500 to 2500 depending upon season.
Every sale barn cafe served what we usually ordered as "Chili Mess". You got a bowl of their homemade chili/no beans and on every table was bowls of chopped onion, shredded chedder cheese, saltine crackers, tobasco and Louisiana Hot Sauce. You could ask for cornbread and it would be stuck in your bowl when served. Makes me want some right now. Mrs Williams ran the cafe at Regan Jenkins Thurday sale at Athens for years and I ate lots of her Chili Mess. My wife worked at 2 and sometimes 3 sale barns each week and since the office sometimes ran 24 hours, if I was planning on eating, the sale barn cafe was a chance to eat with my new bride. Times are a changin' and some of the barns now don't have a cafe or even a place to get coffee or a coke. Old time cattlemen and cattle buyers are a rolling in their graves!