I pity you because you haven’t had any of the chili I made Sunday. It was amazing. So I figured I’d share the recipe, because why not? Also because I don’t have a recipe box, but I do have a blog archive, and at some point I’m going to want to make this chili again.
It’s turkey and sausage chili. The turkey is to make it more healthy. The sausage is to even that out a bit. And you might have to sub in some different peppers for the ones I used because I imagine you’re not growing the same peppers I am. You should, though. Mariachi peppers are awesome.
Here are the ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. Ground turkey
1 lbs. Spicy Italian sausage, loose*
3 15 oz. cans petite cut tomatoes
2 15 oz. cans kidney beans
1 15 oz. can black beans
1 15 oz. can pinto beans
2 15 oz. cans corn
1 large onion, all chopped up
4 cloves garlic, the same way
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped**
1 Mariachi pepper, chopped**
1 hot Portugal pepper, chopped**
1 bottle of beer, preferably lager
2 heaping tablespoons chili powder
2 heaping teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
*– A lot of places sell loose sausage meat, but it’s also easy to just buy sausage, slice open the casing and throw it in the pot. Somehow some people don’t know this. Also I know it sounds weird to use Italian sausage in chili but that’s just because you don’t know.
**- If the peppers are suitably hot you probably want to avoid including too many seeds or else the chili will be overwhelmingly spicy. I didn’t exactly struggle to keep them out of there, but I made sure the big stem with all the seeds didn’t go in.
Here’s the recipe:
1. Brown meat in a large stockpot over medium heat. Drain.
2. Lower heat to low and add everything else. Cook for three hours or so, stirring every so often. Once it starts looking less like a random conglomeration of stuff and more like chili, taste it. Add salt, honey or hot sauce as desired.
Serves a bunch. 8-10? I don’t know. I’ll let you know when we finish eating it, which will be a while since it’s frozen in small portions to be defrosted at various times over the next several months. You might also want to invest in tupperware.
Also, I should note that this is toward the soupy side of chilis. If you like a meatier, less liquidy chili, I dunno, drain all the beans before you dump ’em in there or something.
I don’t have a picture. Damn this chili is good though.
Buy a roll, cut that bastard open from the top, ladle in the chili, dollop on sour cream, turn on TV, watch sports, eat chili.
Bread bowl = edible dish. Less dishes to do, more food to eat. Total win-win.
Tedquarters 
So you think you’re the Pope of Chilitown, huh. I ask you this: where does the depth of flavor come in?
Turkey chili is the Dane Cook of meat soups
Gotta add some chorizo.
+1 on this.
Brief detour into food snobbery. I take anything that simmers for hours on end with occasion poking by the chef quite seriously.
Interestingly, I always use ales for my chili, preferably Brooklyn Brown (in less spicy chilis) or Avery Maharajah IPA (in the ones I make for me).
That said, I cannot recommend enough that after you brown your meats, I’d at least sweat the onion and then recommend using half your beer to deglaze the pan. With help from a good whisk (and a cast iron pot preferably), you’ll pull up burnt up sausage from all over your pan and between that and some caramelizing of your vegetables , you should develop deeper flavors. Also, if you wanted to thicken, after you deglaze, you could let your beer boil for a couple minutes, which would reduce it and lower the liquid amount without sacrificing the beer-y character.
Sounds like an awesome chili. My wife makes a similar ground turkey chili in our slow cooker.
On a related note, that purdue ground turkey is a great way to allow yourself to eat some traditionally unhealthy things more often. We quite often just cook up that ground trukey with some basic taco seasoning and use it for all type of mexican dishes that you’d normally use ground beef for. Tacos, burritos, mexican pizza, etc.
Its not quite as good as using ground beef, but its still comes out pretty darn good, and makes me feel alot less guilty about eating tacos and burritos all the time.
Same here. When you use turkey instead of ground beef, you feel less guilty about smothering your food with cheese.
My wife makes a similar turkey chili as well, but she adds chorizo and steak (diced in cubes). The chorizo adds a lot of flavor while the steak gives t a little more substance.
Ted, you should try the jumbalaya recipe from Paul Prudhomme. Awesome. Like Chili, you can use any meat you want. My wife and I usually use scallops, shrimp, chorizo and hot italian sausage.
That’s a tough sell, but I can probably be convinced.
Did you add honey? I wouldn’t like a spicy chili without a hint of sweet???
Honey? Really? That seems like it’d be a bit of an off-flavor. I usually like to use a sweet bell pepper (an orange or a yellow) to provide a nice sweet counterpoint…
And to think, I thought tedquarters was just a blog where I get to occasionally lament about baseball and marvel how Ted eats all the stuff I’m too much of a wimp to eat (e.g. the DoubleDown). Now I can add haute cuisine debates to it.