With the weather quickly turning, all I can think about are warm hearty meals.  What’s better than some chili on a fall afternoon!  For this recipe I incorporated a smoking technique making an over the top beef chili.  By smoking the ground beef above the chili mix, it brings a new twist to a traditional recipe.  The combined taste of smoked meat and enhanced chili flavor from the meat drippings make for an over the top beef chili recipe!

Prepare the beef chili mix.

As any traditional chili mix, in a dutch oven add the basic ingredients.  This includes diced onion and a red bell pepper, olive oil, cumin, chili powder, cayenne, salt, pepper, tomato paste, tomato sauce, chicken stock and diced tomatoes with green chili.  I picked the green chili diced tomatoes to give this recipe some extra heat.

Mix all the ingredient together and get started on mixing the meat.

For the beef, I used ground beef chuck (80%/20% mix) and hot Italian sausage meat. The Italian sausage will elevate this recipe with additional spicy and savory flavors.  For the seasoning add cumin, chili, powder, cayenne and salt.  Mix the beefs together and form a round flat ball.

Place the formed beef patty onto a wire rack and place it on top of the filled dutch oven.

Grill time.

Set up the grill for indirect heat at 250 degrees.  Slowly smoke the chili and meat for 2 hours or until the meat reaches 150 degrees internally. The beef drippings from the meat above will add another layer of amazing beefy goodness that you cannot replicate if cooked directly in the chili.

Time to add the meat.

It’s time to add meat into the chili!  Remove the wire rack from the grill and crumble up the beef.  Next, place the crumbles into the chili along with pinto and kidney beans and let it continue to cook for another hour or until the beans are soft. The smokiness of the beef with the spiciness from the hot sausage, cayenne pepper and green chilis make for one over the top beef chili!

To serve, add a few scoops of chili in a bowl, Frito chips, sour cream, green onions, cheese and enjoy!

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