Homemade Skyline Chili

  

If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, I would probably choose Skyline. 

If you've never heard of this, then you have to try it! Skyline is "Cincinnati Style Chili." It's very different than traditional chili. It's got a unique flavor, because it contains cinnamon and cocoa powder. It's good on hot dogs and french fries, but served on top of spaghetti noodles is my favorite way.
There are frozen Skyline meals available at some stores, but they're not nearly as good as the restaurants. Since I'm never in Ohio, I knew I needed to find a copy-cat recipe to get my fill. I can't remember what website I got this one from, but I tried it once and fell in love.

This tastes almost exactly like what you'll find in the restaurant. I think even if they brought a skyline restaurant to Tennessee, I'd still make this, because it's just that good.

Homemade Skyline Chili

Printable 4x6 recipe card available here.

Ingredients:

·         2 lbs. RAW Ground Beef

·         2 med. onions

·         2 tsp. minced garlic

·         4 cups beef stock

·         2 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

·         2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

·         2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

·         2-3 tbsp. chili powder

·         2¾ tbsp. unsweetened cocoa

·         1 tsp ground cinnamon

·         1 tsp. ground cumin

·         ½ tsp. salt

·         ¼ tsp. allspice

·         ¼ tsp. ground cayenne

·         ¼ tsp. ground cloves

·         1 bayleaf

·         1 tbsp. dark brown sugar

Cut your onion and garlic, and puree in a food processor.

I don't use as much onion in the recipe as it calls for. I just really can't taste it, so I usually get one large onion and use half in the skyline and use the other half on top.As for garlic, I usually use minced garlic from a jar, but had fresh garlic on hand, so used it instead. It really didn't make any difference, so just use what you've got.

Once you've pureed your onion and garlic, cook in a large stock pot with a little bit of oil until the liquid evaporates.

Then add in your beef stock, and bring to a boil.
Add your raw meat and whisk to break it up. You want it as small as possible. This type of chili is very thin, so you want all the chunks broken up as much as you can get them.

After you've broken the meat up you'll add in the rest of your ingredients.

Something I do to save a bit of time since I make this fairly often is to measure out the dry ingredients for multiple batches at once. Then I just have to dump one bag of stuff in the pot, instead of measuring out a million different teaspoons of spices.

Reduce heat and let simmer for at least one hour.

It's a pretty gross brown color when you start cooking it all, but it smells good, and tastes amazing once it's done.

I prefer a 4-way bowl, which is the chili served on spaghetti noodles topped with onions, cheese, and oyster crackers. Some people like it with kidney beans as well, but I like it better without.


I usually cut the recipe in half, because it makes a lot for just 2 people. Sometimes I make the whole batch and the leftovers freeze great, it usually just depends on how much freezer space I have.


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