Food - Drink
Your Chili Will Taste Even Better With One Simple Ingredient
By EMILY BOYETTE
Subbing in a flavorful liquid for water will elevate any dish, including chili, and cooking with alcohol has become increasingly popular. While alcohol not only improves the taste of your food, it bonds with fat and water molecules and helps penetrate flavor into the meat when incorporated into marinades and sauces.
Each type of alcohol tastes significantly different, and the best booze for chili are red wine, hard cider, and beer. Red wine lifts the meaty flavor to prevent any heaviness while adding a subtle sweet taste, and pinot noir is the best red wine option due to its berry and earthy tones.
Dark stout beers enhance flavor depth, release more sweetness, and help tomato sauce, paprika, and onion in releasing sweet malty flavors while bringing forth a hint of nuttiness. When coupled with the tomato components of the dish, any kind of original-flavored hard cider brings out acidity without being overpowering.
To add alcohol to the dish, just follow the chili recipe and swap alcohol for water at a 1:1 ratio. Alternatives such as soda, tomato juice, herbal tea, seltzer water, and bone broth are also good if alcohol is out of the question.