Poll: is it chili if it has no meat?

[HWooldridge]

I grew up in San Antonio - chili was invented there. The basic recipe is ground or cubed meat with red chile peppers, salt, black pepper and a little garlic - nothing else. I add a can of Rotel tomatoes and roasted jalapeños but that’s just me.

With regard to beans, most of the Hispanics I know will tell you to make all of the side dishes separately then serve. That means a pot of chili, a pot of beans and a pot of rice on the stove - but they don’t get mixed until in your belly.

I’m getting hungry, might be time to make a batch.

[stubshaft]

Chili = MEAT! and NO BEANS!

[Txcowboy52]

Chilli ain’t chilli without meat ! No way no how !

[Dekota56]

I have ate Chili that my mother in-law called it with out meat… didn’t care for it, at all.
But I told her it was good.
Now as far as my wife’s cooking, my father told me the dad I got married. He said if my wife made anything you don’t like, you better tell her you don’t like it or else you will eat it the rest of your life..

[jimlj]

I got threatened with fire ants last time I got involved with a chili discussion. i think it requires meat, but no comment on any other ingredients.

[BLAHUT]

No meat = No Chili. But I'm also a purist about beans. No beans in my chili (except back in college, when we threw everything in it).

Gota have beans in it, try filling up, 4 growing boys with gravy and a little meat ???

[Walks]

I grew up eating it both ways. Been eating it for 65yrs so far. When I make it myself it has beans, 'cause that was Dad's recipe. Just can't seem to convert the recipe to no beans. Never comes out right.
I buy Wolf brand Chili NO MEAT for Chili dogs and burgers.

Anybody that puts kidney beans in Chili should be keel hauled, TWICE. Probably new yorkers,
they ruin everything.

[Bored1]

If it doesn't have stewed tomatoes, I am HAPPY AS CAN BE!!! Don't care if it's got beans, meat, chicken, happens to be white somehow. Keep the chunky cooked tomatoes out of it and I'll eat it and be happy.

[barnabus]

It's your wife, you had better figure out how you are going to get along with her.
I am almost 72, I learned you have better like everything your wife cooks, whether you like it or not.
To add to that, you better be prompt to the table.
In my early days of marriage, I was watching a Charles Bronson movie I had never even known existed.
My wife called me to supper (that's dinner to city folk) I was so ingrossed in the movie I didn't come to the table quite as fast as my wife expected me to.
I will never forget a scalding hot roast chicken flying across the room at me, the flight of the Phoenix.
Something I will never forget, I learned my lesson.

Better like everything she cooks and scamper to the table at a bellowing call?you might as well hand in your man card cuz your a wuss! lol

[elmacgyver0]

Better like everything she cooks and scamper to the table at a bellowing call?you might as well hand in your man card cuz your a wuss! lol

Well, I guess you should know. LOL

It is a give and take thing.
At one point she told me I had to get rid of my guns.
I told her she knew I had them when we got married.
So, if she didn't like it, not to let the door hit her in the butt on the way out.

[waksupi]

Chile (chili is anglicized) refers to the chile peppers and can make a soup/gravy all by itself, so you cna put in whatever you want. That being said, it all depends where you are from and what has been deemed holy! Haha. Being from south Texas, meaning it is Tex-Mex chili, most purists will tell you it is beef, maybe some pork, onion, garlic and chile and nothing else! No beans and certainly not red beans or kidney beans. Pinto beans are what the natives like!

What, no cabrito in the chili?

[white eagle]

Chili without meat?
no way Jose
all I call that is chili sauce

[buckwheatpaul]

To my way of thinking it is vegetable soup....absolutely nothing wrong with that especially if ya got some cornbread to go with it!

[Rapier]

I ordered cabrito in Argentina, just once, a fellow hunter told me it was great, as a joke. I am not a real fan of goat in any fashion, born or unborn.

Chili needs both the meat and the beans in my cooking. Washed beans added in the cooking of chili thickens the chili, as they simmer in the chili. I add Thai peppers after I cook the chil just to my bowl only.

[nicholst55]

The proper name of the dish is chili con carne (chilis with meat). How can it be chili without carne?

[MaryB]

I agree we need meat,even hotdog chilli has meat.So if your eating chilli without meat you have spicy tomato sauce with Beans

tomato? In real chili? HEATHEN!

[MaryB]

Texas Red aka the real deal chili

Hand chopped chuck, pieces about the size of you little fingernail
Chopped onion
Chopped garlic
mild chili powder(1/4 cup per pound of meat, can cut back for wimps)
hot chili powder(to taste)
beef base(better than bullion, to taste, adds salt)
Beer just to cover

Brown meat in bacon fat with the onion, add garlic towards the end to not burn it, add mild chili powder and stir until fragrant(this is key, it releases the oils in the chili powder), add beer, beef base and cover and let simmer until meat is tender. Add hot chili powder anytime from 15 minutes before done to right at the end, longer you wait the rawer the pepper flavor will be. Can skip this for heat wimps!

no veggies, no beans, no tomato... chili made the way the chuck wagon cook would have on the trail.

[Shawlerbrook]

Chili needs meat, Period !

[ulav8r]

It should meat with no beans, but my wife usually adds beans to stretch it. She often mashes the beans so they aren't seen as easily, but if properly seasoned the beans can't be tasted. She also once made a pot of 15 bean soup and called it soup, but it tasted like chili.

[farmbif]

the question should be, what is the best cut of meat and the best way to cut it up for chili.