How to Make Spicy Chilli With Fermented Hot Peppers

Written by Michael Grant in Lacto Fermented Vegetables,Recipes

Bowl of chili toped with fermented jalapenos

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Chili recipes are everywhere, some with normal ingredients which you would expect while some include ingredients like coffee, maple syrup or blended vegetables.  Now I don’t know about you but I like a simple chili with ingredients I can recognize and full flavors which combine well.  Mostly I want a chili which has some spice in it.

This recipe includes the use of fermented hot peppers which not only add heat to the chili but also additional complex flavors which add to its interest.  You can use any type of fermented hot peppers depending on your preferred flavor and spice tolerance.

Equipment:

equipment for making chili with fermented hot peppers: a cutting board, kitchen knife mixing bowl, steel pot wooden spoon and various measuring spoons
  • Kitchen pot
  • Mixing bowl
  • Cutting board
  • Kitchen knife
  • Wooden spoon
  • Various measuring devices

Ingredients:

Ingredients for chili with fermented hot peppers: ground beef, tomaoto sauce, kidney beens, onion, garlic, fermented jalepeno peppers fresh oragano and parsly, bowl of cumin, salt and 3 hot chili peppers
  • 1 kg of regular ground beef
  • 1 onion minced
  • 1 green pepper roughly chopped
  • ½ cup fermented hot peppers roughly chopped
  • 1 can crushed tomatoes 
  • 2-4 garlic cloves minced
  • 1-3 dried chili peppers
  • 1 can kidney or pinto beans
  • 1 tbsp cumin
  • 3-4 sprigs fresh oregano minced or ½ tbsp dried
  •  2 Fresh parsley or cilantro sprigs minced
  • Salt to taste

Instructions:

  • Add ground beef to pot and heat slowly to medium high stirring constantly.
  • Cook beef until it browns and releases some of its fat
Browned ground beef in a pot

  • Remove beef from pot and add minced garlic to the pot
  • Cook until garlic browns slightly 
  • Add onion and cook until soft
Cooked Onion
  • Lower heat to low and add cumin
cooked onion and garlic in pot with added cumin on top
  • Add oregano and parsley/cilantro and stir for 1 minute
cooked onion, garlic with chopped oragano and parsly on top

  • Add tomato sauce and browned ground beef
Added tomaot osauce and graound beef to garlic, onion mix
  • Add hot peppers
Added fermented jalapeno peppers
  • Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes and then add beans
Added kidey beans to grownd beef mixture
  • Add green pepper
Add green peppers to chili
  • Simmer another 5-10 minutes 
  • Add salt to taste
  • Remove from heat and rest for 5 minutes
bowl of chili, a salt grinder with a pot of chili in background

Note:

Many recipes use vegetable oil to saute the onions and garlic.  Vegetable oils are high in polyunsaturated fats which are unhealthy, even healthy oils like olive oil become unhealthy when heated in a pan once the heat gets above 350℉ (180℃).  This recipe does not use any vegetable oils since there is enough beef fat in regular ground beef to accommodate sauteing the aromatics prior to adding the tomato sauce.

Adding the dried spices while sauteing the garlic helps to release the flavors in the spices and increases their flavor profile in the chili.  Fresh vegetables contain high water content so they need to be added at the end of the sauteing process just prior to adding the tomato sauce to preserve the aromatic effect of the spices.

Michael Grant

Mike has been an enthusiast of fermentation for over ten years. With humble beginnings of making kombucha for himself to the intricacies of making miso, vinegar and kefir. He makes a wide variety of fermented foods and drinks for his own consumption and family and friends. Being a serial learner he began experimenting with a wide variety of fermented products and learning widely from books, online from content and scientific studies about fermentation, its health benefits, how to use fermented food products in everyday life and the various techniques used to produce them both traditionally and commercially. With a focus on producing his own fermented products in an urban environment with little access to garden space he began Urban Fermentation to help others who want to get the benefits of fermentation in their lives. He provides a wide variety of content covering fermented drinks like kombucha and water kefir, milk kefir and yogurt, vinegar production and lacto-fermentation such as pickles, sauerkraut for those who have to rely on others for food production. With an insatiable hunger to know more about fermentation from all nations and cultures he also has learned to make natto, miso and soy sauce, with more to come as the body of knowledge about fermentation is constantly expanding and becoming more popular as time passes.

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