Keto Chili — Ryan’s Firehouse Recipe That Saved Our Thursday Night

The school district officially announced we are remote for the rest of the year. I sat with that for a while. The rest of the year. My students will not be in their classroom again until fall at the earliest, and honestly who knows about fall. I called my co-teacher and we were both quiet for a while and then we started talking about what we can actually do — what we can adapt, what we can build, how we can reach the kids who are falling through the cracks. That is the only useful direction to point yourself.

I have been thinking about Jess a lot lately, which I do not always write about here. She was twenty-one when she died and I have now lived five years longer than she got to. Every extra year I have feels like it belongs to both of us somehow. I do not know if that is a healthy way to think about it or not, but it is the way I think about it. I made her mother Cathy call this week — we talk a few times a year — and we talked for an hour about nothing and Jess and nothing again and it helped.

Ryan surprised me Thursday night with a date at our own apartment. He moved the coffee table, put a sheet over the TV, hung up twinkle lights he found at the dollar store, made his firehouse chili — the real version, the one he has been perfecting for two years, with three kinds of chili pepper and a bottle of dark beer and four hours of simmering. He said we were not going to let this thing take everything. He is right. We ate chili at our indoor picnic table and watched a movie and it was a genuinely good evening.

The firehouse chili went on the blog this week — his recipe, his instructions, credit given. The comment section was chaos in the best possible way. Apparently a lot of people have opinions about chili. I had no idea Ryan was going to become a minor celebrity to my readers. He is handling it with great dignity.

Ryan has been tinkering with this chili for two years, and Thursday night he finally declared it done — three kinds of chili pepper, a full bottle of dark beer, and four hours on the stove while he hung dollar-store twinkle lights in our living room. I am posting it here exactly as he made it, with full credit to him, because some recipes belong to a specific person and this one is entirely his. If your week has been heavy and you need something that takes time and rewards you for it, this is the one.

Keto Chili

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 4 hours | Total Time: 4 hours 20 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 lbs ground beef (80/20)
• 1 lb beef chuck, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 ancho chili pepper, dried, stemmed, and crumbled
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced (plus 1 tsp adobo sauce)
• 1 bottle (12 oz) dark beer (stout or porter)
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
• 2 cups beef broth
• 3 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• Optional toppings: sour cream, shredded sharp cheddar, sliced green onions, pickled jalapeños

Instructions

1. Brown the beef. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the cubed beef chuck in a single layer and sear until deeply browned on all sides, about 6–8 minutes. Remove and set aside. Add the ground beef to the same pot and cook, breaking it up, until no pink remains, about 5 minutes. Drain excess fat, leaving about 2 tbsp in the pot.
2. Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion and cook until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and jalapeño and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly. Add the crumbled ancho chili and minced chipotle with adobo sauce; stir to coat everything evenly.
3. Bloom the spices. Add the chili powder, smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne, oregano, salt, and black pepper directly to the pot. Stir and cook for 90 seconds until the spices are fragrant and lightly toasted.
4. Deglaze with beer. Pour in the dark beer and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Let it simmer vigorously for 3 minutes to cook off some of the alcohol.
5. Add remaining liquids and meat. Return the seared beef chuck to the pot. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and beef broth. Stir well to combine everything.
6. Simmer low and slow. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover partially with a lid and simmer for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, stirring every 30 minutes, until the beef chuck is fork-tender and the chili has thickened considerably. If it thickens too fast, add a splash of broth.
7. Taste and finish. In the final 15 minutes, remove the lid and let the chili reduce uncovered. Taste and adjust salt and cayenne as needed. Serve hot with your choice of toppings.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 31g | Fat: 25g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 680mg