Canning Chili Con Carne

Chili Con Carne

3 quarts tomatoes, pureed

1 quart tomatoes diced

2 onions, diced

3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups pinto beans, dried

3 pounds hamburger meat, cooked and rinsed

6 to 8 tablespoon chili powder (your personal preference)

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons cumin, ground

2 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon beef bouillon

1 teaspoon black pepper

Place the dried beans in a dutch oven and cover with about 3 inches of water and soak for 12 to 18 hours. Then drain the bean and and add 5 ½ cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. You can add salt to the beans if you want, but I typically do not. Once the beans have cooked for 30 minutes remove them from the heat and set them aside.

Core, score and blanch 5 to 8 quarts of tomatoes in boiling water for 90 seconds, then dunk in ice water so that the skins can be easily removed, then cut the tomatoes into a small to medium dice depending on your preference. Save the tomato skins for your compost pile or you can do like we do and feed them to the chickens, they love them! Anyway, set aside 1 quart of the diced tomatoes and puree the rest. Now depending on the size and type of the tomatoes it may take 4 to 5 quarts of diced tomatoes to equal 3 quarts when pureed.

Brown your ground beef. Now typically I use cheap 73/27 for chili, after it is browned I rinse it in hot water to remove and excess fat. If you are interested in why I use the cheaper ground hamburger in my soups and casseroles check out my blog and read the article on ground beef on this blog (November 24^th, 2014).

Once the ground beef has been browned and drained add it to a large stock pot with all the remaining ingredients except the beans and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Do not thicken the chili, you want it to be a little soupy in order to process safely, you can always thicken it later if it is not thick enough. While this is cooking, now is a good time to prepare your canning jars and lids and get all the necessary supplies you will need to can your chili.

Fill you hot jars leaving 1-inch headspace. Remove any unwanted sir bubbles and adjust headspace as necessary. Wipe the rims of the jars with a clean dampened paper towel, add lids and process as below:

Pints 75 minutes in a weighted pressure canner at 10lbs.

Quarts 90 minutes in a weighted pressure canner at 10lbs.