Stay warm with these 20 twists on traditional chili

Not all chili has to be dark red or brown in color. For a lighter take, try making your chili with cannellini beans, chicken and a chicken broth-based sauce. Taste of Home has you covered with all the details right here.

Why settle for a single bean when you can have a trio that includes kidney, black and garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas)? This recipe from MyRecipes also includes chopped peppers, onion and garlic, and it is best served topped with sour cream.

We’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that this chili recipe involves about 30 ingredients. (No joke.) The good news is that one of those ingredients is listed as “1/4 cup tequila, plus more as needed.” We interpret this as “it’s OK to take a few swigs of tequila while combining all 30 ingredients.” Be sure to head over to Pixelated Crumb for the details, and please, cook responsibly. 

Want a way to add more vitamin A, vitamin C, fiber and potassium to your chili? Just throw in some sweet potatoes. As this recipe from Cooking Light explains, leaving the skin on the potatoes will make for a shorter prep, add some fiber and help the spuds keep their shape. Feel free to leave out the beef for a vegetarian-friendly option.

Not a carnivore? Squash the meat that’s included in most chili recipes, and replace it with butternut squash, like in this vegan version from The Simple Veganista. Although typically viewed as a fall food, squash stores well and should be available year-round in most markets. 

Ground beef and turkey are great, but pulled pork will really kick your chili up a notch (or several notches). The surprises don’t stop there, because Morgan Eisenberg of Serious Eats throws in a second twist by adding cornbread dumplings to the mix and cooking them with the chili! As if this recipe couldn’t get any better, the whole thing can be made in your slow cooker. We have no words.

Not a bean fan? Chili can still pack plenty of flavor without the need for legumes, as seen in this “No Beans About It” recipe from AllRecipes, which uses just beef, garlic, onion, tomato, red wine vinegar, hot sauce and a few spices.

The difference between this chili and most others? This one is really, really hot, thanks to the inclusion of Anaheim, poblano, and jalapeno chiles. It also includes one 12-ounce beer and is best served over double-fried french fries, according to Food Network’s Guy Fieri himself.

Like chili macaroni, this variety is served over pasta, but in Cincinnati, the pasta of choice is spaghetti, which is how it has been served for more than a century. In fact, the Ohio city even has its own naming system. “Two-way” refers to chili and spaghetti, and the combos go all the way up to a “five-way,” which includes spaghetti, chili, cheese, onion and beans, like in this slow-cooker recipe from The Spruce. (Just don’t tell the folks in Cincinnati that we referred to their version as not being traditional chili.)

It may sound a bit cuckoo at first, but cocoa can actually be used as a chili ingredient. Saveur didn’t stop at adding one type of chocolate in this recipe — it used three: unsweetened cocoa powder, chopped semisweet chocolate and one chocolate stout beer. Gee, maybe we should have led with the beer part.

If you’re a starch-lover at heart and a big bowl of chili seems a bit too hearty, then try spooning a scoop over some white rice. Not only will it satisfy your hunger, but it will help supplement and stretch out a premade batch of chili so you can put off cooking again for just one more day. If you need help getting started, the folks at Food Network are here to help.

By now you’ve probably figured out that you can pretty much put chili on anything, including tacos! Just use any chili recipe you’d like and spoon it on top of a soft/hard flour/corn tortilla. For a healthier spin, try this version from Weight Watchers.

Chili pizza is exactly what it sounds like: chili on a pizza. McCormick, the legendary spice company, makes the execution easy with this simple, six-ingredient recipe. In sticking with the tradition set by decades of delivery people, your pizza should be ready and on the table in 30 minutes or less.

Adding pasta can make chili into an even more filling lunch or dinner. Eight ingredients go into this skillet-cooked version with elbow macaroni and sirloin beef, which only takes 20 minutes to prepare. Ready Set Eat has the recipe right here.

Remember all that stuff about chili-cheese dogs? Well, the same can be said about chili-cheese fries — except french fries are an even more acceptable year-round food. While you could get your chili straight from a can for this meal, check out Sandra Lee’s recipe via Food Network for an easy way to make it from scratch. For an extra kick, throw some sliced jalapenos on top!

Hot dogs are usually viewed as a summer food, but do you really want to be chowing down on hot chili when the temperatures are already high? Use the cold weather as an excuse to cook up some dogs and top them with hearty, meaty chili. Grill covered in snow? With this recipe from Genius Kitchen, you can make the entire meal in a slow cooker.

Chili on a burger is as delicious as it is messy and should be reserved for only the most serious of carnivores. After all, it’s ground beef on top of ground beef. Feel free to use any classic chili recipe for the topping or this one from Delish, which also includes pickled jalapeños and green onions. (And tells you how to make the burgers, too!)

A tip for travelers – Don't miss Original Tommy's Burgers chili burgers when you're in Los Angeles. They're scattered across L.A. and the Southland. 

Chili-cheese nachos are the perfect game day snack (for any sport!) as they really only require chili, cheese and chips, with some sour cream to add on top. Chowhound has a recipe here, which also includes a link explaining how to make chipotle chili from scratch.

Why should beef get all the attention when it comes to chili? This recipe from The Spruce subs chicken as the meat. Although the list of ingredients is lengthy, don’t panic, because most of the work will be done by your slow cooker. (And just in case, there are also stovetop instructions.)

The black beans in this chili give it its distinctive dark brown color and also make it a go-to dish for chili lovers who aren’t fans of the kidney or pinto beans traditionally found in most recipes. Budget Bytes understands this, as well as the challenges involved with saving money, which is why its cooks made this recipe.