Coffee is our ingredient of the season. You can find our favorite cold-brewed coffee here. But if you’re in a rush, try this instant hit.
When choosing coffee as our featured ingredient, I knew that I wanted to use it in a few ways that were outside of my comfort zone. And using it in today’s chili recipe is definitely one of those examples! 
I love a good savory chili, but I was worried that the addition of coffee would add a bitter and unpleasant taste. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and this dish turned out to be a delicious (and easy) dish!
Slowcooker Chili (with coffee!)
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs beef stew meat
- salt and pepper
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 bell pepper, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- small butternut squash, diced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 large can (or 2 small) fire-roasted diced tomatoes
- 2 tsp ground ancho chilies
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 cup brewed coffee
- 3 cups cooked beans, I used a combination of pinto and black
- 1 avocado
- cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper. Heat about 2 Tbsp olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Brown the stew meat. Remove the meat from the pan.
- Add a touch more oil if necessary. Sauté the onions, carrots, and bell peppers for a few minutes (I like to do it until the onions are translucent).
- Place the browned meat, sautéed vegetables, squash, garlic, tomatoes, coffee, and spices in a slow cooker. Cook on high for 5-6 hours.
- A few minutes before serving, add the cooked beans.
- Garnish with cheddar cheese and avocado before serving.
Ingredient Notes
The recipe above is a modified version of this 3rd place winner from the 2011 Farmer’s Almanac Coffee Recipe Contest. The main differences between the two are that mine is less spicy, I added some extra veggies, and I use dried beans.
- Diced carrots are always a great addition to chili, and so are many hardy winter squashes. They can help to thicken the liquid as they cook, and they add a nice sweet flavor that compliments the spice. Keeping with the easy theme of a slowcooker recipe, I picked up the pre-diced butternut squash from Trader Joe’s. It makes eating your veggies super easy, and can make a chili dish seem less meat-heavy.
- When it comes to bean varieties, I’m of the opinion that you can use any kind you like. Go all in with pinto. Or use any combination you have. The important thing is that your beans are soft. Many recipes, like the original, will call for canned beans to solve this problem. I prefer to use dried beans for a variety of reasons. When using dried, I soak them overnight and then cook them in a pressure cooker before adding them to the chili. I find that it’s almost impossible to get soft beans at my altitude without a pressure cooker. Do whatever you’re comfortable with, just don’t serve hard beans.