The Simple Fix For A Batch Of Chili That's Too Tomato-Heavy

If you're looking for cuisine that's ripe for personal interpretation, search no further than a hearty bowl of chili. Plenty of folks have various tips and tricks for making homemade chili, often influenced by a slight bias that aligns with how they prefer the dish to taste. Whereas some people favor a Texas red, others want their bowl chock-full of beans, and others still won't settle for anything less than an elusive Colorado green chili. But one thing most can agree on is that when it tastes too tomatoey, it's lackluster at best.

Yasmin Henley, the head chef and recipe developer at By The Forkful, explained why a chili with an abundance of tomato flavor doesn't work. "A chili with too much tomato can very quickly end up tasting more like a Bolognese than a chili," she said. "Chili should have depth — smoky heat, earthy spice, and savory richness — and when tomato dominates, the dish can taste acidic, thin, or one-note."

But don't panic if you accidentally created mundane fare, because Henley indicated there is an easy way to fix it. "A pinch of sugar — brown sugar works especially well — can absolutely help balance excess acidity and round out the flavor," she said. But again, there's no one right way to flavor the dish. You could forgo sugar and add sweetness to chili like Bobby Flay with maple syrup, for example. Still, sometimes extra saccharinity isn't the answer.

While Yasmin Henley suggested that a touch of sugar could cut through the acidic nature of tomato and give a chili more balance, there are plenty of other ingredients that can do the job as well. "Sweetness alone isn't always the full solution," she said. "I also like to build back savory depth by adding more cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, or a touch of cayenne." Generally, adding common chili spices early elicits the best outcome as they get a chance to bloom longer, releasing more flavor over time. But if it's between resigning to a dish that tastes like pasta sauce or not getting quite as much impact from your seasonings as you'd prefer, that's a no-brainer.

Then again, there's always something to be said about thinking outside the box. "Even better: stir in something rich and savory like beef broth, a splash of soy sauce, or a bit of cocoa powder to restore that classic chili complexity," Henley said. The bitterness in cocoa powder adds that complex depth of flavor that any great chili needs, and a bit of soy sauce might just up the salinity enough to make some of the other ingredients in the dish pop. At the end of the day, a homemade chili can be made however you like as long as it exhibits a harmonious balance of flavor. If you unwittingly make it too tomatoey, doctoring it up with the various ingredients Henley mentioned is a sure-fire way to get your dish back on track to Flavor Town.