Browning and graying

Many older Texas recipes stop short of browning. Wick Fowler’s recipe, as John Raven printed it, says to sear the meat in a skillet until gray in color before it goes into the pot with tomato sauce and water. The competition recipe in Raven’s 1998 comparison of competition and eatin' chili cooks the meat over medium heat in melted shortening until gray. Not every early recipe stopped there. Julian Capers, second at the 1952 State Fair of Texas, rendered suet, discarded the solids and cooked his cubed beef in the fat until browned, stirring often, before covering it with water.

Current champions do not agree among themselves. Tom Dozier’s 2018 CASI recipe browns and drains the ground chuck about three hours before turn-in and sets it aside until the first dump is boiling. Kathryn Cavender’s 2019 recipe browns the meat with the lid on, keeping it in large chunks, then drains the grease and wipes out the pot. Greg Lindsey’s 2025 recipe does not brown at all: he simmers meatballs halfway submerged in beef broth at a medium boil for about thirty minutes, so that they stay very medium rare, before draining them and starting the first dump.

Outside competition, browning is common in home recipes. America’s Test Kitchen’s chili con carne browns cubed chuck in two batches in bacon fat. The Cincinnati style rejects browning entirely, for reasons of texture described in its own entry. None of the three published approaches is required by either rulebook, which ask only that the meat start raw and, in CASI’s case, unmarinated.