How to Make Smoked Chili

Everyone loves a good chili, but if you’ve never tried cooking chili on a smoker, you’re missing out! The smoked flavor adds incredible depth to the chili and makes it something that you will crave and want to make again and again. We’ve even made this recipe in the dead of winter. When I’m willing to stand outside in 30 degree weather to make something, you know it’s good.

In this post I’ll go over how to make this fantastic dish, how to prep it so that everything goes smoothly, and answer all of your chili related questions.

The Recipe

We’ll be using the Over the Top Chili recipe from the Big Green Egg as our starting point, but I’ve made a few tweaks. During the cook we’re going to be forming all of our ground beef into a meatball and smoking it as it sits over the chili on a wire rack (hence the “Over the top” name).

Here are the tweaks I made (all of this is noted in the recipe):

• Increased the amount of garlic
• Used spices that I had on hand instead of the recommended premixed spice blends.
• Mashed some of the beans to serve as a natural thickener.  
• Used half the amount of beef (it was still plenty)

You’ll notice this recipe uses different chili beans that the red kidney beans you normally see in the chili pot. If kidney beans are what you have, you can of course substitute them.

If you just want the recipe and basic instructions here you go, have at it!  If you want the details around how I did this, and some tips for making the smoked chili — keep reading!

Prepping the Ingredients

The Beans

If using dried beans soak them the night before in enough water to cover them. I used an instant pot to cook them, so it was just a matter of turning it on the day of (10 minutes, high pressure, natural release). If you don’t have an instant pot you can use these instructions for making dried beans, or simply use canned.

Everything Else

The recipe goes a lot smoother if you prep your ingredients before moving out to the grill.

• Chop the onion and jalapeno and mince the garlic. Using fresh garlic is much better than garlic powder. Put them in a bowl and set them aside, they will all go into the pot together.  
• Next measure out the spices (except the steak seasoning), these can also go into one bowl. 
• Finally measure out and chop the chipotle pepper.
• When the beans are done (or if using canned) drain them, mash half of them, and set them aside. This is another change I made.  The mashed beans will help to thicken the chili; there will still be plenty of whole beans in the chili.

We’re not ready for the meat yet, so keep the ground beef in the refrigerator. If it’s going to be awhile before you start cooking the smoked chili you should cover all of this prepped food in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator as well.

Moving out to the grill

Now that everything is prepped head out and light the grill.  You could do this in advance and let it heat up while you prep everything else, but we’re looking for a pretty low heat. If you overshoot it you’ll just have to wait for it to come back down.  For something like this, I prefer to keep an eye on it, so I can adjust my vents when I get close to the desired temperature. 

Grill Setup

We want to cook the smoked chili at a low temperature (200 – 225 F) over indirect heat.   If your using a ceramic grill like a Big Green Egg or Komodo Joe there is an adapter you can use to achieve this.   It basically turns your grill into a giant convection oven while allowing the heat and smoke to completely surround the food.  Instructions for the Big Green Egg can be found here.  If you’re using another brand of ceramic grill follow the instructions from the maker of your grill.

A kettle grill can also easily be setup for indirect cooking by spreading the coals out on the sides of the grill and leaving a large cool spot in the center.   These instructions from Weber will demonstrate how to accomplish this.  If you are going to use a kettle grill for indirect heat I highly recommend you get a couple of charcoal baskets so you can more precisely control the placement of the coals.   It’s a small thing, but it makes your life a lot easier.

Cooking the chili base!

Load your vegetables, olive oil, spice blend, beef broth and chipotle peppers onto a sheet pan or large cutting board to make them easy to carry out to the grill.   Start by adding the olive oil, chopped onions, raw peppers and garlic to the dutch oven, then sprinkle with a pinch or two of kosher salt. 

There will be a lot of smoke when you lift the lid, you may want to let that clear before getting too close or you’ll be crying (and not from the onions). Comes with the territory though, can’t make smoked chili without smoke. Continue cooking until the onions start to become translucent and don’t let the garlic go past golden brown.

Next add the remaining ingredients; tomatoes, beef broth, beans, chipotle pepper and spices.  Give everything a nice stir and close the lid of the grill.  Keep an eye on the temperature and adjust the vents if necessary to keep the temperature between 200 and 225 F.  I find you don’t need the top or bottom vent open very far at all to maintain this.

And now, the meat

Head back inside to work with the ground beef. Mix the steak seasoning with the ground beef and shape into a ball. It’s recommended that you smoke the ground beef over the chili by resting a small cooling rack on top of the dutch oven and placing the meatball on top.  It turned out that my cooling rack was too large to allow me to close the grill, so I improvised and put the entire grill grate on top of the dutch oven.  Not something I would recommend you do, but it worked.

Before the next time I try this, I plan to pickup one of these small cooling racks which should easily fit under my grill lid.  If you don’t have a cooling rack, or there isn’t enough space in your grill to have the meat above the chili, you could just place the meatball along side the dutch oven on the grill grate. Just make sure the meatball is also only getting indirect heat and isn’t over the coals.

Let everything smoke for two to three hours stirring occasionally, and checking to make sure the meatball reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.  Cook time is up to you, in my experience chili gets better the longer it simmers, just keep it at a low to medium heat. Then all that is left to do is break up the meatball and stir it into the chili.  Your efforts will be rewarded by something spicy, smoky and delicious!

What to serve with smoked chili

I’ve been a fan of pouring my chili over a piece of corn bread ever since it was served to me that way by the Flying W Ranch on a family trip to Colorado.  I prefer to use a cornbread recipe that has a little sweetness to it.  In this particular case, adding a sweet note to the spice and the smoke flavor is perfect! Don’t use a boxed cornbread mix when it’s so easy to make from scratch.

Corn Bread:

That’s it! A hearty chili so good it’s worth standing outside in January to make it.  Top it with your favorite toppings (mine are sour cream and shredded cheese) and enjoy! This is easily the best chili I’ve ever made, and it’s even better after it’s been in the refrigerator overnight.

A few final notes:

• If you’re sensitive to spice, start small and add as you go.  You can always add more, but you can’t take it out. You can leave the cayenne pepper out entirely if you want. You can also substitute green chilis for the jalapeno for a milder spice.
• You can also put less spice in the chili and add some hot sauce to individual bowls.
• I used two different kinds of chili powder because I had them and I think it adds to the depth of the flavor.  If you don’t have ancho chili powder don’t worry about it, just use the chili powder you have.
• This would probably also be good as a vegetarian smoked chili, forgoing the meatball and swapping out vegetable broth for the beef.  I think the chili itself still picks up plenty of smoke.  Might be worth a try, if you do, let us know how it turns out!
• If you don’t like cornbread try it with homemade egg bread.  Doesn’t chili and fresh bread sound amazing?
• Seriously, I can’t wait to make this again, try it!