Al Roker’s Chili Recipe

I came across a recipe for chili with ingredients I liked and a twist added to it, so I just have to give it a try! I found the recipe in a magazine and it comes from Al Roker of the Today Show. I did make a couple of changes to this recipe. The recipe calls for doing this on the stove top, but I decided that this needs to be cooked in the crock pot. I am also going to increase the amount of meat as I like a really meaty chili! Allow one hour to prep and cook up the ingredients, and 10 hours in the crock pot on the low setting.

Ready to start cooking?

Ingredients
4# boneless chuck roast cut into pieces the size of your baby toe (Al uses 2#’s)
1# hot Italian sausage
2 TBS vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes with juices
1 15 oz. can each of pinto beans, cannellini beans, and kidney beans, drained

A lovely mix of beans

1 cup of water
1 TBS sweet paprika
1 TBS chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
Grated cheddar cheese, sour cream, chopped cilantro

We start by adding the oil to a skillet and heating this over medium heat. Then we add 1/2 of the beef and brown. Remove this with a slotted spoon and place in the crock pot. Cook up the rest of the beef and remove it to the crock pot.

Brown the beef

Next let’s take the 1# package of hot sausage and breaking it up into little pieces add this to the pan.

Brown the sausage

If you use the sausage with the casings, remove the sausage from the casings. Brown this, and when this is done let’s add this to the beef in the crock pot.

The beef and sausage mixed together in the crock pot

Now we toss in the onions to the same pan and cook this up until the onion softens, about 4 minutes, and then we add the minced garlic. Smells really good! We cook this for 2 minutes. Next we add the paprika, chili powder and cumin to the skillet. At this point what is in the pan gets really thick!

The spices added to the onions and garlic mixture

So we add the tomatoes and the water.

Tomatoes and water added to the spice mixture

This is looking really good and the aromas are making my mouth water! How about yours? Turn the heat off. To the crock pot, add in the 3 beans and stir to combine.

Beans added to meat

Then add the tomato mixture and combine.

Tomato mixture added to the meat and beans

Do not worry that the liquid seems really low because as it cooks the juices will release! Now set the crock pot on low for 10 hours!

An hour before this is done is a good time to make some corn bread, which goes really well with chili! While this is baking how about we grate the cheese and chop up some cilantro?

Yippee! The timer just went off and dinner is ready! How about a bowl of chili and some corn bread?

Dinner is served!

To my Tumbling Tumbleweed friends, I made too much chili! Care for any?

Thanks for stopping by today! If you try this, let me know how it turns out for you! Have a lovely Sunday!