When we first moved into our San Diego house way back in 2003, the community was new and we had a brand new fire station. Since we had a 2 year old (at the time) who was completely obsessed with fire trucks, we quickly made friends with our local firefighters. We visited the station often to deliver treats, and they let our son investigate the fire trucks. They brought their rig to our culdesac and popped in for a bowl of chili on Super Bowl Sunday. So I can state with great confidence that this is officially a “Firefighter Approved” chili recipe. And if I had been food blogging back then, I would have taken photos of those cute firefighters eating my halftime chili!! The recipe was adapted barely from an old recipe by Bon Appetit (they don’t even have it on their website anymore).
Really good chili has spices- lots of them (not a chili packet).
What kinds of spices do you need to make chili?
chili powder ground cumin dried basil dried oregano dried thyme bay leaves
What makes a chili recipe so good?
I love to add beer to my chili- it adds a great malty flavor into the sauce. In fact, one of my other favorite chili recipe is my Beef and Dark Beer Chili. Jalapeños are a must-add ingredient too. They mellow out after cooking, so they don’t add as much heat as you think. I also really love to add a good scoop of barbecue sauce to my chili.
How to make Halftime Chili:
The complete, printable recipe is at the end of this post. You will need a Dutch oven or a stock pot to make this chili. Heat olive oil in your pan, and sauté the onions and garlic.
Add the ground beef and cook until it is all nice and browned.
Dump in the spices.
Then you’ll add in a bunch of the really good stuff: beer, jalapeños, tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken broth, and barbecue sauce.
Then just let it simmer away on your stove for an hour or so.
And it will be ready for Game Day, Super Bowl Sunday or any day! We like to keep things pretty simple with a sprinkle of cilantro and cheese and sour cream (maybe even some Fritos!). But you can display whatever fixings you’d like. Enjoy!
Ingredient notes/substitutions:
It’s okay to substitute ground turkey for the ground beef, if you prefer not to use red meat. If you don’t want to chop fresh jalapeño peppers, use a can of mild chopped green chiles instead. Use your favorite beer for this recipe. The type of barbecue sauce you use will affect the flavor of this halftime chili. Use a BBQ sauce that you love! We like Sweet Baby Ray’s Original.
Of course I had to share a photo of my little boy (now much, much older!) at the fire station in all of his gear. He sure loved that place! My little guy shared a fun Super Bowl recipe on his RecipeBoy blog too: How to Make Walking Tacos.
