Recently I entered myself in a chili cooking competition at my job and guess what? I won! This recipe was inspired by John Legend’s recipe, which originally calls for 2T light brown sugar. I omitted the sugar from this recipe and added in a few things to make it my own, but if you enjoy your chili on the sweeter side, by all means add it!  The original recipe called for brown sugar which I omitted, and I enjoy a chunkier chili, so I added diced tomatoes. 

You will need:

1 lb ground beef

1 medium yellow onion chopped

1 cup chopped mushrooms

1 ½ TBSP Lawry’s seasoning salt

3 tbsp chili powder (if you like it spicy you can add Mexican hot chili powder instead!)

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cloves minced garlic 

2 cans kidney beans drained

1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes

1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce

Heat a large pot over medium heat. When hot, add in your ground beef, onion, mushrooms, seasoning salt, chili powder, and cayenne. 

Cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon until the mushrooms release their liquid and the meat is no longer pink, 8 minutes or so. Stir in the garlic and cook for one additional minute. Add in 2 cups water, the tomato sauce,  diced tomatoes, and kidney beans and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the chili thickens and the liquid reduces slightly, 40 minutes or so. The longer the flavors meld together, the better it gets. This will serve 4-6 people. Let me know how you like it!