The Best Hormel Chili No Beans Copycat Recipe (2024)

This Hormel Chili No Beans Copycat Recipe is so close to the original but easy to modify to your own taste and texture preferences. This chili sauce is perfect for hot dogs or hamburgers but also makes a great chili spaghetti sauce.

The making of Hormel Chili No Beans Copycat Recipe

Can one have too many chili sauces? Apparently not as I add my latest chili treat to my site, my "The Best Hormel Chili No Beans" copycat recipe to my other two, or, if you count Gail's Chili Gravy, three chili recipes.

But this recipe addition is necessary as each of my Chili recipes is uniquely different in taste and use. Lindy's Chili Gravy is more like a New York Coney Dog or Cincinnati chili recipe. My der Wienerschnitzel recipe, well, obviously mimics der Wienerschnitzle's famous flavors but for me, it's too sweet to eat all the time.

So what was missing? Well, my favorite other chili dog topping, Hormel chili without beans.

Hormel Chili No Beans vs Hormel Chili No Beans Copycat Recipe

Ingredients for Hormel Chili Copy-Cat Recipe

Fresh ingredients are one of the biggest differences between canned Hormel Chili and making this easy copy-cat recipe fresh from scratch.

Let's face it, Hormel Chili without beans is mostly sauce. There is really very little meat about it. While it's a good sauce, it also has those pesky stabilizers and hydrogenized soy, corn, and wheat products. You can do it without all of these!

• Ground beef AND ground pork - see more detail below in The Meat.
• The Spice Mix - the spice mix is made up of chili powder, ground cumin, powdered garlic, onion powder, and a dash of cayenne pepper.
• Finely chopped fresh onion - I use a yellow onion.
• Tomato Paste
• H2o - better known as water

The Meat-to-Sauce Ratio

Just like the original, I use a combo of ground beef and ground pork.

How much meat is up to you, but I used a ratio of 4 parts ground beef to 1 part ground pork.

As the recipe is written, this gives the end result a much meatier result than the canned version. If you would like more sauce, less meat, simply adjust the amounts of meat you use. If you want more meat, again, use more meat. Just keep the ratios the same.

Of course, if you are making a larger batch you will need to adjust the water and spices accordingly. Goes without saying right? Well, if not, there, I said it.

While it's impossible to get the meat to the exact consistency as the Hormel canned chili, since they do use textured soy protein, if you like a less meaty consistency, you can use an immersion blender to do a few quick pulses that will break those larger pieces of meat into a smoother consistency, giving you a more saucelike chili result.

And remember, you are NOT going to brown the meat, you are only going to "grey" it. It sounds horrid, but really, just get it to not be in a raw state anymore and you are good to go.

Chili Needs to Simmer

A good chili needs some simmering time to allow all the flavors to fully blend. An hour at least, two hours is better, and if you can cook it and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight, better still.

Can I cook this in a slow cooker or Crock-Pot?

Yes, slow cooking is a great way to develop the flavors in this Copycat Chili Recipe. Check your manufacturer's directions for best results, but generally 3 hours on high, or 5 - 6 on low should get great results.

Can I Freeze Hormel Chili No Beans Copycat Recipe?

Yes, yes, and yes. And that's another one of the beautiful parts of making your own fresh recipe. After cooling it fully, portion it in containers and pop them into the freezer. You can then use them at will. Without waste.

I like to portion them into 1 cup servings, once frozen, I put them in seal-a-meal bags if I plan to keep the chili for more than a month so it doesn't develop any freezer burns. Freezer burns, BTW, are more cosmetic in the case of chili, but I guess it's that old, eat-with-your-eyes thing that makes me want to avoid it. You can also store the chili as my mother is fond of doing, in a zip-top bag. Get all the air out of the bag to make a nice flat package and it's easily stackable in the freezer.

Speaking of Freezing - Tomato Paste

You may notice this recipe only uses 3 tablespoons of tomato paste. This, of course, leaves at least half a can sit in the refrigerator waiting to get mold on top of it or be used up quickly.

I found the cure!

Tomato paste freezes. And it freezes well.

I take 2 tablespoon amounts and drop them on a plate, stick them into the freezer, and once frozen, place them into a zip-top bag to be used at my convenience, and as needed.

Look Ma, no mold.

So grab yourself a chili dog (or try it on a hamburger for the perfect chili size). Sit back, and relax. Enjoy the show, or hopefully someday, a rip-roaring nail-biting game.

Enjoy with Homemade Baked Potato Chips or Skillet French Fries for the perfect dinner, drive-in, or dive, lunch, or dinner.

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