Brian Baumgartner’s Chili From The Office
How good IS Kevin’s chili?
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If you’re a fan of The Office, you know the scene. Poor, sweet Kevin Malone walks into The Office with a giant stockpot of chili he spent hours and hours on, adorned in blue oven mitts and eager to share his prized secret-recipe with his coworkers, only to spill the entire thing all over the office carpet. It’s tragic, it’s hilarious, and it always made us wonder just how good that chili was. So it was time to find out! Straight from Brian Baumgartner himself (aka “Kevin”), this is that famous chili.
We made this chili as a part of our Celebrity Chili Recipe Showdown. The showdown is a fun project where we take four celebrity recipes — some celebrity chefs, some not so much — cook them, and then taste and compare them to see how they stack up. This match-up included Bobby Flay, Miranda Lambert, Guy Fieri, and Brian Baumgartner (Kevin, from The Office). We ended up with four very different chilis!
What’s in Kevin’s Famous Chili?
If you’ve always wondered, you’re about to find out. He calls for:
- An onion, bell pepper, and garlic.
- Ground beef.
- Tomato paste.
- Diced tomatoes.
- Tomato sauce.
- Some water.
- Chili powder, ancho chili powder, and oregano.
- A bit of sugar.
- A can of Bush’s pinto beans in chili sauce.
- A can of Bush’s kidney beans in chili sauce.
- Some shredded cheddar cheese for serving.
It’s pretty simple as far as chili goes!
How Do You Make Kevin’s Famous Chili?
That’s pretty simple as well! He has you cook down the vegetables in oil until they’re soft, and then add the ground beef to brown it, followed by remaining ingredients, save for the beans. You simmer that for thirty minutes before you add in the beans and simmer for another twenty. It’s not a terribly long or involved process!
How Does it Taste?
It was very good, but we couldn’t quite agree on how good it was! The flavor is really nice, but Kristy found it to be too tomatoey and a little too sweet. Dom, on the other hand, found it to be exactly the classic chili flavor you want and expect when you think of chili. It’s balanced in what it brings, for sure, it just depends on what you’re looking for out of chili.
We made this as part of our Celebrity Recipe Showdown.
To see how it stacked up, read on here:
Celebrity Chili Recipe Showdown
You can see the other celebrity Chili recipes here:
Miranda Lambert’s Famous Chili
Guy Fieri’s Texas Chili
Bobby Flay’s Black Bean Chili
Brian Baumgartner's Chili From The Office
Yield(s): Serves 6-8
30m prep time
1h 15m cook time
you're making mealtime meaningful.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon grapeseed or other cooking oil
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 pounds lean ground turkey or lean ground beef
- 1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
- 1 (24 oz) can diced tomatoes
- 1 (16 oz) can tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 4 teaspoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons ancho Chile powder
- 4 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 (16 oz) can Bush's pinto beans in mild chili sauce, undrained
- 1 (16 oz) can Bush's kidney beans in mild chili sauce, undrained
- Shredded cheddar cheese, for serving
Preparation
- In a large pot over medium-high heat, heat the oil. Add onion, bell pepper, and garlic and cook until soft.
- Add in ground beef or ground turkey and brown. When nearly cooked through, stir in the tomato paste and finish cooking the meat through.
- Stir in water, black pepper, salt, chili powder, ancho Chile powder, oregano, and sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover. Let simmer for 30 minutes, or until desired consistency is reached, stirring occasionally.
- 20 minutes before serving, stir in beans. Serve topped with sharp cheddar cheese.
Recipe from Brian Baumgartner.