Published: Mar 14, 2023 by Amanda McGrory-Dixon

Smoked Chili With Tender Chuck Roast

When you need to serve a crowd for game day or a casual backyard party, everyone will rave about this smoked chili recipe. You’ll love how every beefy spoonful is full of tender chuck roast and hearty beans in a perfectly spicy, thick red gravy. For a meat-lover’s chili that’s a sure hit at any cook-off, you’ll return to this recipe over and over again.

Looking down on a bowl of smoked chili on a cream-colored placemat with sprigs of cilantro, dried chiles and crushed saltine crackers around it.

Jump to:

Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Ingredients
How to Serve
How to Store, Reheat and Freeze
Recipe FAQs
Substitutions and Variations
Expert Tips
Perfect Pairing
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Superior ingredients for the best flavor: Many smoked chili recipes are known as over-the-top chili, or OTT chili. This is where you form a ball of ground beef that smokes on the rack above the chili, which then drips into the stew. That’s fine, but this chili is even better.

Instead, we first smoke a chuck roast, dice the beef and add it to the chili, and then finish the whole pot in the smoker. Chuck roast is so much more succulent and flavorful than ground beef. Once you have a good chuck roast chili, you’ll never want to go back to ground beef, and that’s a promise.

As if that’s not enough to make a better chili, we also skip the chili powder and opt for a dried chile paste, which is the ultimate secret ingredient. Chili powder doesn’t come close to matching the depth of flavor of a real chile paste, and the process is surprisingly simple.

Ultra versatile: Of course, you can serve this as a bowl with your favorite toppings, but you also have so many other fun options. You’ll get endless uses for this chili — you’re only limited to your own creativity.

Makes for easy entertaining: Need a dish to feed a crowd? Check. Want to make your chili well ahead of party time? Check. Hosting is always as simple as can be when chili is on the menu.

Related: Put that smoker to use and try my smoked tri tip, smoked brisket and smoked jalapeño poppers.

Ingredients

Chuck roast: Pick up a roast that’s about 3 pounds. If you don’t like beans in your chili and plan on skipping those, you’ll want a 4-pound roast. I do not recommend substituting a top round roast — we want chuck for that wonderful flavor and texture.

Dried chiles: I always use a blend of guajillo and chile de àrbol peppers when making a red chili. The guajillo adds some additional smoky notes with just a touch of fruit for balance while the chile de àrbol gives it some heat.

Chipotle peppers: Look for the canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, not just the dried peppers. We also use that adobo sauce to give our chile paste even more depth.

Seasonings: For our chili seasoning, we use a blend of cocoa powder, dark brown sugar, ground cumin, smoked paprika, Mexican oregano, coriander, cayenne pepper, salt, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Yes, it’s a lot of ingredients, but you likely already have them in your pantry.

Coffee: Those roasted coffee notes give our chili some additional complexity, and it pairs wonderfully with chile spice.

Beef stock: If you have homemade beef stock, that works beautifully. Otherwise, I recommend using Better Than Bouillon for your stock. It’s by far my favorite store-bought stock, and it’s easily available at just about any grocery store these days.

Apple cider vinegar: With all those rich, complex flavors, this adds the perfect brightness.

Step-by-Step Ingredients

Step 1: To start, we season our chuck roast with just salt and pepper (photo 1). Since the roast is going in the chili, we don’t need a ton of seasonings in this step.

The chuck roast rubbed with salt and pepper on a brown wooden cutting board before going into the smoker.

Step 2: Now we place the chuck roast directly on the grill grates with a water pan of a 225-degree F smoker and insert a meat thermometer in the middle of the chuck roast (photo 2). We close the lid and let the smoker work its magic until the chuck roast reaches an internal temperature of 155-165 degrees F. So many factors can affect smoking time but expect this to take three and a half to four hours.

The chuck roast on the grill grates of the smoker with a leave-in meat thermometer inserted in the center of the meat.

Step 3: As the chuck roast cooks, we can multitask and start on our chili base. For this, we toast the dried chiles in a Dutch oven until they turn fragrant and then simmer them in beef broth (photo 3).

The dried chiles simmering in beef stock in a large black cast-iron Dutch oven on the stove.

Step 4: Once the dried chiles soften, we move them to a blender with the beef stock and blend them with chipotle peppers and adobo sauce (photo 4). This is our red chile paste.

The dried chiles, chipotle and beef stock in a blender after the ingredients have been processed to make the dried chile paste.

Step 5: From here, we cook plenty of onion and jalapeños in olive oil and then add some fresh garlic cloves in the last 30 seconds (photo 5).

A wooden spoon stirring the onions, jalapeños and garlic in a large black cast-iron Dutch oven on the stove.

Step 6: Now we pour the beef stock, coffee, apple cider vinegar and red chile paste into our large pot and stir in the diced tomatoes, tomato paste and seasonings (photo 6). At this point, you can turn off the heat and let the chili sit if the chuck roast is still smoking.

The seasonings on top of the chili before they've been stirred together in a black Dutch oven on the stove.

Step 7: When the chuck roast is ready, we allow the meat to rest for 10 minutes, cut it into cubes, stir it into the chili base with the beans and bring the mixture to a boil (photo 7).

The smoked chuck roast on top of the chili in a black Dutch oven before stirring it into the mixture.

Step 8: We’re ready to place the pot of chili back on the smoker's grill grate (photo 8). For this phase, we want to raise the heat to 275 degrees F and leave the chili uncovered. Allowing the chili to smoke uncovered infuses more smoky flavor and reduces the sauce to a thicker gravy.

The pot of chili in the smoker uncovered before closing the lid to finish cooking.

After two to three hours, we have the perfect bowl of chili. Grab a spoon and enjoy every meaty bite and that delicious smoky flavor.

Note: This recipe was tested on a vertical pellet grill, but you can use any type of smoker. If you don't have a dedicated smoker, here's a resource on how to turn your gas grill or charcoal grill into one.

How to Serve

Of course, a hearty bowl of chili piled with your favorite toppings and a side of cornbread and homemade honey butter is the perfect way to serve your guests. Who doesn’t love a chili bar for game day? For a few topping ideas, these are some of my go-to garnishes, but feel free to get creative.

Smoked cheddar cheese
Red onion
Jalapeño slices
Sour cream
Guacamole or avocado slices
Crushed tortilla chips
Fresh cilantro sprigs
Lime

In addition to serving as a stew, you can smother this chili on so many other dishes or use it to make a chili cheese dip. These are some other great ways to use leftover chili.

Topped on a hotdog — bonus points for picking up high-quality hot dogs from a butcher shop
Smothered on nachos
Spooned onto smoked burgers
Poured over frito pie
Mixed into queso
Made into chili mac

How to Store, Reheat and Freeze

Once the chili completely cools, keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You should be able to store it for up to four days. When it’s time to reheat the chili, simply warm it on medium heat on the stove or cover it and pop it in the microwave.

For freezing, you can keep it in a freezer-safe container for four to six months. Technically, it’s still safe to eat after that, but you may notice the quality isn’t quite as good. To thaw, you can leave it in the refrigerator for 24 hours or use the thaw setting on your microwave.

Recipe FAQs

What’s the best wood for smoking chili?

My favorite wood for smoking chili is hickory, though oak would work nicely as well. I would save your fruit wood chips or pellets for lighter dishes.

Is this smoked chili spicy?

Yes, this chili definitely has a spice kick. After all, chili is supposed to be spicy. Otherwise, it’d just be a bland bean and beef stew.

While this is a spicy chili, I find most people can handle the heat just fine. If anyone is especially sensitive to heat, make sure you have plenty of sour cream and cheese on hand. Dairy helps cut heat.

What if I don’t have a Dutch oven?

Instead, you can use a disposable aluminum Dutch oven liner or a deep aluminum pan. If using a liner, you might want to double up to ensure it's sturdy enough. For reference, I used a 7-quart Dutch oven for this recipe.

What are the best beans for chili?

I used pinto beans, but so many different types of beans work. Think red kidney beans, white cannellini beans, black beans or even a combination. Of course, if you want to make this as a Texas-style chili, you’d skip both the beans and tomatoes. But when I’m not making a Texas chili, I love the heartiness they add.

An aerial view of a bowl of smoked chili on a placemat with cilantro, dried chiles and crackers to the left.

Substitutions and Variations

If you prefer shredded beef, like in my Dutch oven chili and short rib chili, you can skip cubing the chuck roast and place it whole in the chili. After a couple hours of smoking, you can remove it, shred the beef and add it back to the pot.
Swap the guajillo chiles for dried New Mexico chiles or dried cayenne peppers for chile de àrbol if need be.
Substitute coffee for a stout — both add lovely roasted notes.
For extra spice, use serrano or habanero peppers, or you can cool the heat by substituting a poblano pepper for jalapeños.
Try another sweetener for the brown sugar, such as molasses.

Expert Tips

Discard fat while trimming: Most of the chuck roast will be usable, but if you get any bits of pure fat, don’t add those to the chili.

Make at least a day ahead if possible: The chili is delicious right after smoking, but giving it a day in the refrigerator allows the flavors to meld even better.

Use kitchen gloves: You want to wear kitchen gloves when handling the jalapeños. The pepper oil can otherwise irritate your skin, and if you touch your eyes with the oil on your fingers, it will burn.

Rinse the beans: This gets rid of excess sodium by removing that starchy liquid.

Keep your Dutch oven well seasoned: If using a cast-iron Dutch oven, make sure it's well-seasoned to protect it from the acidic tomatoes. Just to be safe, I like to rub it with an extra layer of canola oil before cooking.

Perfect Pairing

Beer and chili go hand in hand, especially when it’s a nice stout. A stout features roasted malt, which complements those spices, chile paste and coffee, and it’s big enough to match the hearty beef chuck and beans.

Want to sip on wine instead? You will love a zinfandel on the side. Zinfandels show off both fruity and peppery notes. That touch of pepper is made for the spices while the fruity side offers some contrast to the heat.

Or maybe you’d like a cocktail. My Cadillac margarita is perfect. That zip of lime adds just the right brightness and helps cut through the rich gravy and chuck roast.

When you need a reliable recipe that’s sure to make you the star of your next chili cook-off, I hope you try this smoked chili. With that wonderful smoke flavor, this is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Don't be surprised if it becomes your new favorite chili recipe.

Cheers!

A close-up of the chuck roast in the smoked chili in a cream-colored bowl on a small plate with a bundle of cilantro in the background.

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