Skip to main content

Spicy Slow Cooker Chili

In the winter months, chili is a great comfort food for cold days. Slow cooker chili is something you can quickly prepare in the morning and let cook all day. Who doesn’t love walking into a house that smells like chili after long and stressful day?

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,091 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8
Prep20 min
Cook6 hr

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion, bell peppers and jalapeno and cook about 5 minutes, until softened.

  2. Add the ground beef or turkey and cook, breaking it up, about 8 minutes until no longer pink. Beef must reach 160°F (71°C); turkey must reach 165°F (74°C).

  3. Drain off any excess fat, then transfer the meat and vegetables to a 6-quart slow cooker.

  4. Stir the chili powder into the slow cooker, then add the pinto and/or kidney beans, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and water. Stir to combine.

  5. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, until the vegetables are tender and the chili has thickened.

  6. Stir well and serve hot.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + beeftop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20,622 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the jalapeno

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, onion, beef, kidney beans, tomato, sauce):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  4. Jalapenothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, onion, beef, kidney beans, tomato, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).