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Dark chocolate beef chili

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Ingredients

Scale
  • about 2 lb ground beef
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes (you can up this to 29-ounce if you want a thinner chili)
  • 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes or 3 fresh medium tomatoes, diced
  • 1 14-ounce can of black beans, or whichever bean you like most (kidney or pinto, perhaps)
  • 1 stalk (rib) of celery, diced
  • 1/2 cup carrots, diced
  • 1 bell pepper, diced
  • 1–2 jalapenos, diced (less if you don’t like spice, more if you do)
  • 2–3 tbsp chili powder (adjust to taste)
  • 1 tsp cumin powder
  • 1–2 tsp crushed red chili pepper
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne (more for extra spice)
  • 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips (a little less than 2 ounces), melted
  • 2–3 tbsp brown sugar (optional and to taste)
  • 1/4 cup Heinz ketchup (optional! but tasty!)
  • 1/3 cup chicken broth (optional, for thinning)
  • salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Brown the beef and onions together in a large pot over medium heat. Once cooked through, you can drain the fat if you like.
  2. If not, go ahead and add everything else into the pot (super complicated instructions, right?) You may want to melt the chocolate before adding it, but it might not make a difference, up to you. You also may want to start with less seasoning than the recipe calls for and adjust to taste, especially after allowing it to simmer for some time.
  3. Let simmer on medium-low heat for 45 minutes to an hour, or until flavors blend together. Serve with plenty of green onions, cheddar cheese (or any cheese of your choice — I used smoked gouda because that was what we had and it was amazing), and more jalapenos if you like.

Notes

As stated above, this is a recipe for a slightly sweeter and slightly less bean-y chili. Feel free to up the beans to two cans if you like, and feel free to decrease the sugar or omit altogether if that’s your preference.

As for the chocolate, David Lebovitz recommends unsweetened chocolate for this, which I did not have. If you use this instead, you might want to increase the amount of brown sugar to compensate.

Find it online: https://tworedbowls.com/2014/01/07/dark-chocolate-beef-chili-polar-vortex-top/