Best Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce (Texas Chili)

Are you looking for the Best Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce? Then, you’ll how simple and delicious this Texas Chili recipe is!

Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce

If you’re anything like me, sometimes 5 o’clock rolls around and you still don’t know what you’re going to cook for dinner. And you might not have a ton of fresh veggies on hand. 

But you still want to whip up a great recipe for your family that’s nutritious, a quick recipe and tastes great. With little ones that have tendencies to be kinda picky with what they eat, this just complicates things even more.

One of my tricks for combatting the dinner time stress of not having the right ingredients or knowing what to make is keeping a well-stocked “cantry”. This helps to save time and allows me to provide my family with a healthy, flavorful and home-cooked meal on the table, more often. It’s homemade made easy.

One of our favorite meals that we always have ingredients on hand for is my husband’s Texas Chili. It’s hearty, flavorful, and something the entire family enjoys. 

The first time my husband made this recipe I was skeptical. The family recipe I was used to eating was nothing like this one. 

It was a traditional chili recipe with tomato paste or whatever other tomato products my grandma had on hand. Sometimes she would use a potent tomato concentrate or tomato puree. Other times she would use tomato juice. 

But growing up, it was always a tomato chili. While this isn’t an entirely tomato-less chili, it is a chili recipe without tomato sauce.

That’s not where the differences ended though. My grandma would also use whatever meat she had on hand too. Whether it was a chuck roast or venison, she would make it work. 

The flavor profile on Grandma’s classic chili was also way different than this one. She would add a mixture of spices never remembering which ones she used the previous time. 

Most of the time the main flavor ingredients she used were a couple of tablespoons chili powder, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes. She didn’t use too much of any spice in her chili because my grandpa would get crazy heartburn.

You might even find brown sugar or canned chunky tomatoes, cloves garlic. So it wasn’t always a good recipe.

It always took a long time for the pot of chili to cook. The Instant Pot would have changed her life because she was always cooking for huge crowds.

My husband and I enjoy the zesty flavor of fresh chili peppers from our garden. Hot chili flavors like ghost peppers or habaneros.

But if you’re not a fan of spicy foods, the original recipe below still has lots of flavor. It can just as easily be made with less heat by swapping out the peppers for milder varieties like green bell pepper or red peppers. Or you can remove them completely as we do for our girls.

This flavorful pot of chill is one of our family’s favorite recipes. This easy recipe requires no draining and can be ready to eat in as few as 35 minutes total time!

If you’re looking to win your home town annual chili cookoff, this recipe delivers. My husband won two competitions in our neighborhood with this recipe! 

Common Ingredients With Notes

• Ground beef: I prefer to use a 90/10 mix of lean ground beef or ground sirloin to keep this chili lean. If you use meat with a higher fat content than that, make sure to drain off the excess fat before adding other ingredients. You can also substitute other ground meat options like ground chicken or ground turkey.
• Onion: I like to use red onion in our chili for a little extra punch. If you can’t make it to the grocery store for red onions, you could also use a white onion or yellow onion.
• Dark red kidney beans: this recipe doesn’t use any beef broth because I don’t drain the beans.
• Black beans: if you don’t have or don’t like black beans, you could also use pinto beans.
• Diced tomatoes and green chiles: I use the HEB brand but you can find this at most stores under the Rotel name brand. Both are equally as good.
• Chili seasoning: you can use a package of chili seasoning like Morton’s Chili Blend. But I like to make things easy and my homemade taco seasoning. It pulls double duty as my chili seasoning as well.
• Optional mix-ins: red bell pepper, green peppers, or really any bell peppers; a couple of cloves of garlic, adobo sauce
• Optional toppings: sour cream, cheddar cheese, chili sauce, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce

How to Make Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce

In a dutch oven or large pot over medium heat, add olive oil. Brown the ground beef until cooked halfway. 

Add diced onions to the meat and continue cooking until the meat is browned and the onions are translucent.

Add the can of Ro *tel and the rest of the ingredients to the pot and cook for 10-15 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer until desired consistency.

Make sure to taste before serving and season with salt and black pepper as needed. The end result will be a pot of delicious chili the entire family will love.

What to serve with True Texas Chili

There are so many things you can serve with this easy chili recipe. Some of our favorites are corn bread, tortilla chips, and red wine. You could also serve this spicy chili on top of hot dogs.

More easy chili recipes

• Easy Slow Cooker Chili Recipe
• Hatch Pork Green Chili
• Keto Chili Recipe
• Spicy Green Chili with Lamb

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Best Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce

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Best Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce

Are you looking for the Best Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce? Then, you'll how simple and delicious this Texas Chili recipe is!

Course Main Course, Soup

Cuisine American

Keyword beans, chili, ground beef, soup

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 8

Calories 200 kcal

Author Live Love Texas

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb. ground beef you can also use ground turkey or chicken
• 1 red onion large, chopped
• 5 cans Dark Red Kidney Beans
• 1 can Black Beans
• 1 can Ro*Tel any flavor
• 1 pkg. chili seasoning

Instructions

1. Brown ground beef over medium heat until cooked halfway.

2. Add onion to meat and continue cooking until meat is browned and onions are translucent.

3. Add all other ingredients to pot and cook for 10-15 minutes.

4. Reduce heat to low and simmer until desired consistency.

5. Serve with cornbread.

Nutrition Facts

Best Chili Recipe Without Tomato Sauce

Amount Per Serving

Calories 200 Calories from Fat 99

% Daily Value*

Fat 11g17%

Saturated Fat 4g20%

Cholesterol 40mg13%

Sodium 44mg2%

Potassium 380mg11%

Carbohydrates 10g3%

Fiber 3g12%

Sugar 1g1%

Protein 13g26%

Vitamin A 120IU2%

Vitamin C 5.8mg7%

Calcium 38mg4%

Iron 2.3mg13%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.