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+ servings

Pressure Cooker Chili

Make a pot of meaty and comforting chili with the help of my favorite culinary time machine: the pressure cooker.
The original recipe for this pressure cooker chili was concocted for one of my favorite episodes of Good Eats. But, I cooked it recently and found it sorely wanting…flavor. I also really wanted to get rid of the jar of salsa originally called for.
So, here’s the new and improved pressure cooker chili, this time with more flavor.
Oh, in case you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can execute this in a covered Dutch oven in a 350°F oven but it’s going to take about 5 hours. Me, I’ll take the pressure cooker any day.
This recipe first appeared in Season 8 of Good Eats.
Pressure Cooker Chili in a bowl next to a glass of beer.
ACTIVE TIME: 15 minutes
TOTAL TIME: 1 hour 30 minutes
Yield: 1 1/2 quarts

Software

  • 3 pounds stew meat (we like to mix beef, pork, and lamb)
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons AB's Chili Powder or quality store-bought chili powder (we buy ours from Spice House)
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 16 ounces fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
  • 2 ounces tortilla chips
  • 3 chipotle chiles, roughly chopped
  • 1 tablespoon adobo sauce
  • 1 tablespoon dried chopped garlic, not powder (we buy ours from Spice House)
  • 1 tablespoon dry onion flake, not powder (we buy ours from Spice House)
  • 1 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
  • 2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano
  • 1 to 2 shots liquid smoke (we use Lazy Kettle brand)
  • 1 (12-ounce) bottle lager (actually, nearly any beer will do, with the exception of "light" beer)
  • 2 tablespoons peanut oil

Specialized Hardware

  • 12-inch cast-iron skillet
  • 6-quart pressure cooker

Procedure

  • Half an hour before cooking, toss meat with the salt, chili powder, and cumin.
  • When ready to cook, place the tomatoes, chips, chiles, adobo, garlic and onion flake, sage, oregano, liquid smoke, and half of the beer in the pressure cooker pot and bring to a simmer. 
  • Put a 12-inch cast iron skillet over high heat for 5 minutes. Toss the meat with the oil.
  • When the pan is hot, brown the meat in two batches, moving each batch to the pressure cooker as it’s finished. Finally, deglaze the skillet with the other half of the beer. Scrape the pan to thoroughly release/dissolve any solids. Add the remaining beer to the pressure cooker and stir ingredients together. Lid up and bring the cooker up to pressure (always familiarize yourself with the instruction manual as various makes and models work differently). When the cooker starts to whistle, back down on the heat to just maintain pressure.
  • Cook 40 minutes, then kill the heat and allow the pressure to reduce naturally, about 5 minutes. Carefully open the cooker and stir a few times, then cool 15 minutes before serving.