Chilli Con Carne - what vegetables do you include?

zaniro

zaniro

zaniro

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It's a popular dish, so I thought I'd ask what vegetables everyone includes in theirs? I use chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, red kidney beans, small dice carrots, and onions. The recipe I adapted mine from didn't include carrots but it did list sugar - carrots are a natural sweetener in sauce dishes, so I swapped them.
 
I also use tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, chopped Spanish onions in a hot chilli base sauce and sweat the onions down with a selection of home grown chillies finely chopped. This year is red cayenne and scotch bonnets. Kidney beans and french green beans added for colour mainly. 500g of mince gives four or five generous servings.I have never used carrots or thought of sugar but the shop bought sauce base may have some sugar in.
 
Large onion, Mutti chopped tomatoes, touch of tomato puree, kidney beans, a sweet red pepper, and as much scotch bonnet as I can get away with before the Mrs and 7 year old complain!

I'll occasionally use a chipotle too, but only when I can find them in adobo sauce rather than the bagged, dried variety.
 
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I use mixed beans in chilli sauce from Sainsbury's, onion, then Mutti tinned tomatoes and paste. Few diced bell peppers also.
 
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Carrot, onion, celery and red pepper, fried a bit first.

Then I add a tin of 3 mixed bean you get in supermarkets, 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, and a tin of baked beans.
 
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I use the following in varying quantities that are adjusted to taste:-

Tinned tomatoes, onion, (bell) peppers, kidney beans (or mixed beans), mushrooms and chillies
 
NickK said:
Beer.. that’s veggie in origin :)
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Actually some brown ale added to the mince and simmered for a while sounds like a very good idea before adding other ingredients. I shall try that, thank you.

Edit, cooking is hot work so the remainder in a glass would also be welcome.
 
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Onion, garlic, chilli fried, then mince, tinned chopped tomatoes, tomato passata, kidney beans, borlotti beans, baked beans, black eyed beans, salt & pepper, extra chilli con carne powder spices, peppers and sometimes mushrooms.

I usually make a big stock pot full at a time and freeze it down in portions.

The trick I find to making it a real good chilli is the length of time simmering, I usually leave it for a min of 6hrs on the hob and then it really develops a depth of flavour that you don't get when just cooking quickly.
 
I would:
1. cook down some onions
(sometimes carrots and celery if they are in the fridge, but they is more for bolognese), 2. 2. Once the onions are golden, then add plenty of garlic and fresh chillies and dried chillies, and cook for 2min
3. Add ground cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, & smoked Chipotle chilli flakes, cook 2min
4. add the beef. Sometimes I remove the vegetables first so I can get the pan hot to brown the beef
5. Add chopped tomatoes, cook for 20min
6. Add a selection of beans, cook for a
Further 30min
 
I make mine in a completely non traditional way.
Start to cook down some finely chopped onions.
Finely chop a chorizo up, think individual slices quartered type of fine ( adds a depth to the overall flavour)
Sweat that until the paprika from the chorizo has coloured the onions
Add the beef.
Cumin, smoked Paprika and chilli's - If you want a lovely smoky heat to it use chipotle paste instead of chilli's, I usually use 2-3 tsp as I like it fairly spicy
Add tomatoes, I use 1 tinned and half again fresh
Gently simmer for an hour or two until the beef is tender and then turn the heat up to reduce it down after adding the beans
Last thing to add, 1 square of 70% dark chocolate, no more than that, it adds a lovely finishing taste

Coriander and chilli to garnish
 
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edgedemon said:
Last thing to add, 1 square of 70% dark chocolate, no more than that, it adds a lovely finishing taste
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Was going to add this myself, simliar recipe's to a lot of the above, but this just makes it so much better. (although I tend to use 70% dark Cocoa powder rather than actual chocolate!)

It's very noticable if I don't add it to my chilli's.
 
Completely agree though if I had to choose between adding the chorizo or choc, Id actually go with the chorizo, it really does add something if added early enough. My wife still remembers the look of horror on my face when she first tried using it, until I actually ate the chilli and I was all in after that..
 
As above too. This time of year we have 3023094934 tomatoes to use from the greenhouse so I'll pop a load of fresh tomms in and cook them down instead of using tinned chopped tomatoes.... I'm lazy so I leave the skins and seeds etc in, but it still ends up sweeter and it is generally a nicer, deeper taste and I like the texture. It does take around and hour extra of cooking time to get rid of the water from the fresh tomatoes.

All other times of year I use tinned tomms.

Like others every now and again I throw in some pan fried chorizo.... need to get it crispy first though. I keep meaning to try that throwing some dark choc in, but we never have any so....
 
edgedemon said:
Completely agree though if I had to choose between adding the chorizo or choc, Id actually go with the chorizo, it really does add something if added early enough. My wife still remembers the look of horror on my face when she first tried using it, until I actually ate the chilli and I was all in after that..
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Will definitely give that a go.. cheers..
 
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