“Hot as hell’s brimstone” or “soup of the Devil”, the more priests warned against it, the more people wanted it.

From the first chili cook-off in the abandoned mining town of Terlingua, Texas in 1967 to your kitchen next Tuesday night, this easy chili recipe cooked in your pressure cooker is yours to tweak to your heart’s content. Cooked in about 35 minutes start to finish. Make it, tweak it, share it, and make it again.

Easy Chili Recipe

“Wish I had time for just one more bowl of chili.” - Last words of Kit Carson, American frontiersman (1809-1868)

Pressure Cooker Recipe: Chili (video)

Easy Pressure Cooker Chili Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 sweet onion
1 green bell pepper
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups of diced tomatoes, 2 cans un-drained
2 cans dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper or to taste
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons kosher salt or to taste
1 1/2 cup water

Directions

Brown the ground beef in the pressure cooker on medium heat, ~8 minutes. Remove the meat from the pan and drain some of the grease if you want.

Brown the beef in the pressure cooker

Put the pressure cooker back on the stove and add the olive oil, onions, green pepper, and jalapeno pepper. Cook on medium heat until the onions are clear, about 3 or 4 minutes. Next throw in the garlic and give it a few quick stirs. Finally, add everything else into the mix: the meat, kidney beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, cocoa powder, red pepper flakes, chili powder, cumin, salt, and water.

Add the rest of the ingredients

Stir well and lock the lid. Bring the pressure cooker to pressure (15 psi) on high heat, then immediately lower the heat to maintain this level. Cook for 8 minutes.

The pressure cooker indicated 15psi by releasing a small steady amount of steam.

When the time is up, remove the pressure cooker from the heat and use the natural release method to cool.

When the pressure cooker has equalized, carefully open the lid. Stir and serve. If you find it needs to be thicker just boil it on the stove for a few extra minutes.

Cheese and Oyster crackers are the traditional garnish.

Easy chili on the table

While few have died, many a chili war has been fought. If this isn’t the best chili recipe for you, keep looking. It’s out there. Here are a few suggestions on where to start:

• Start from the beginning: The history of Chili
• International Chili Society recipes
• Chili Appreciation Society recipes

….or look for the next chili competition near you. Our last was the 2010 Chilly Chili competition in Rochester, New York.

Recipe adapted from Spyce on AllRecipes.com