Give Beef Chili 10x More Flavor With An Easy, Over-The-Top Trick

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So-called "over the top" chili doesn't get its name from a showy visual or a burst of special flavor, though it does deliver both those benefits naturally. The "over-the-top" portion of the moniker comes from the fact that you're meant to cook chili in your smoker over the course of several hours with a sizeable hunk of beef on grates over a Dutch oven or chili pot. Done this way, the juices drip down into the simmering stew. The meat for the chili, which is eventually crumbled into the pot, is consequently imbued with that inimitable, delicious kiss of real wood smoke.

Alton Brown touts instructions for an easy DIY smoker, but we might prefer to whip out the pellet grill or Big Green Egg for this one, as we think the setup could be a little precarious when a cardboard box is called into play. Basically, you're going to prepare your chili exactly the way you like it in a sturdy pot. This isn't the time for the great "beans in chili" debate, because there's no wrong answer in this case. The trick comes into play when you put said pot in your smoker and cover it with a baking rack. On that rack (which is "over the top" of your chili, get it?), place a seasoned hunk of beef. A shaped loaf of ground beef is just fine, but there's no reason you couldn't use a chuck roast if you really wanted to. Fire up your smoker, and let time, heat, and gravity work their respective types of magic. You'll be dazzled by how much extra flavor ends up in the finished chili.

The best part of over the top chili is that it doesn't really require an exact recipe or finicky measurements. As long as you have a meat thermometer to monitor your beef (we've seen tons of positive reviews for the TempPro TempSwift model), you can basically wing the rest on the basis of vibes and visual clues. The knowledge you already have about the best meat-to-fat ratio for burgers applies here: you don't want a fat blend that will result in too much grease pooling in your chili, but a really lean beef might end up dry and unappetizing. Most sources recommend an 80/20 blend (the gold standard for burgers), but you can opt for 85/15 if you want to minimize oiliness.

As for the rest of the dish, keep in mind that we're not the Chili Police. Your level of desired spiciness will determine what sorts of chili peppers you use (if any), and most people have a bespoke blend of seasonings that they swear by. One item of note, however: social media users and bloggers alike seem to really enjoy a couple squares of dark chocolate stirred into OTT chili at the end of the cook. Cocoa powder or chocolate in chili is already a popular addition for nuance of flavor — no, it doesn't taste like dessert — but the dark chocolate savor seems to really balance well against the profound smoke of the chili in this case. Great chili is in the eye of the beholder, but when you smoke beef atop your pot, the results are highly likely to impress everybody at the table!