Well, hiya! It’s finally my favorite food season. Bring on the hot cups of cider, cinnamon-scented everything, and don’t forget the warm bowls of instant pot Mexican chili, topped with all your favorite chili toppings! Friends, Houston is experiencing the most beautiful, albeit, unusually cool fall weather. I wake every morning to temps in the mid-40s, and that has never happened, not this early in the season. So I plan on taking full advantage! I’m planning on making two enormous vats of instant pot soups this weekend (which I’ll share with you guys in the upcoming weeks) and having a few close friends over for soup supper with tons of crusty bread, with apple crisp and vanilla ice cream to boot! I’m so in my food element with all the fall things.
I told Anees we should light the fireplace while we’ve still got the chance. Speaking of, at what temp is it okay to light a fire? Are there rules for these things. I for one do not follow them. Did you hear what happened the last time I tried to? Last December we finally had our housewarming party. I had to have a theme. Because that’s completely normal and we’re just going to go with it. Ours was cabin themed. As in plaid, woodsy, hot cocoa, the scents of evergreens and balsam drifting through the room. The weatherman gave me all sorts of assurances that the weather would be dipping into the 30s and here I was, all ready to embrace it. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly end up working out that way. It was probably the HOTTEST day ever experienced, in history in December. Ninety degrees. Mother nature sure had it out for me that day! But even then, I tried. I suggested we could still light the fire and let the air conditioner run too. Compromise. Anees looked at me like I was a lost puppy dog; so desperate to keep with the theme that I’d let the fireplace and AC battle it out for my sake. You know those type of people that just try too hard to make things perfect? In moments of insanity, I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE.
But enough about me, let’s get back to today’s instant pot Mexican chili recipe. Dried guajillo peppers are just one of the things that make this mexican chili a double-thumbs-up sort of recipe. We’ll rehydrate them in a little water before adding them to the pot. They give this mexican chili such a smoky, delicious flavor. I’m almost convinced to never make chili without them. The other reason? It’s an instant pot (affiliate link) recipe! You can still make this in a slow cooker or on the stove if you don’t have an instant pot but with one, it takes 40 minutes from start to finish, and you’ve got a chili that tastes like it’s been slow-simmered all day long. The ingredients for my instant pot mexican chili are pretty straightforward. You can use ground beef or boneless chuck roast chopped into tiny quarter-inch pieces to give your chili a little more bite. This is probably the umpteenth chili recipe I’ve shared on the blog. When the clock strikes October, beef, beans and all sorts of seasonings find their way into a big pot. The last one? Pumpkin chili. Have you tried it? There’s got all sorts of goodness in there, black beans, quinoa, pumpkin and pumpkin spice. And if that sounds weird, it’s one-hundred percent not. It works.
Favorite toppings for instant pot mexican chili? Shredded cheddar cheese, a handful of cilantro, diced sweet onions and FRITOS. Have you ever tried chili with Fritos? Nope, not tortilla chips, actual Fritos. They have way more crunch and add so much in the texture department when it comes to chili. Oh so good. My hope for you is that you’ll add this instant pot chili recipe to your list of weekend food. I always get asked, can you freeze this recipe? And for this one, I’m sure; you can freeze instant pot mexican chili. Pull it out a couple weeks later when you just need a warm and hearty bowl of comfort food and it’ll treat you well. Hurray for soup/stew/chili season!
beef: try adding 1/4 inch pieces of chuck roast to this instead of the ground beef. It comes out delishspice Level: When I say this chili is spicy, I mean it’s a little more than what we normally eat. For us, we’d call this maybe a 6 on a 1-10 scale. 10 being unbearable. To cut back on the spices, you cut back or skip the jalapenos. You can also reduce the guajillo peppers to 2 and cut back to 1 chipotle pepperbeans: You can use other types of beans for this recipe too. But you know me and black beans <3stovetop: brown the meat as directed. Drain and add the guajillo peppers along with the remaining chili ingredients and a 1/2 cup of water. Slow-simmer the chili for at least 1 hour and longer to let the flavor develop. If it starts drying out at any point, just add a little more waterslow cooker: brown meat as directed. Add drained guajillo peppers, chili ingredients and 1/2 cup water to a slow cooker and let cook for 3 hours on high or 6 hours on low.
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