We taste-tested six brands of canned chili you’re likely to find at your local supermarket. To find the very best one, we sampled each without knowing which brand was which. Our winner is Wendy’s Chili With Beans, but we also crowned two runners-up.
Canned chili is an ideal meal for a long, arduous backpacking trip. I remember reaching for these trusty cans of beans and meat during childhood visits to Olympic National Park in Washington and Yosemite National Park—far better, in my opinion, than the freeze-dried chili packets commonly used by backpackers (though those come in handy if you’re trying to reduce the weight you’re carrying on your back). While homemade chili is unquestionably my preferred way to enjoy the dish, sometimes the canned version is necessary for trips like this, or simply for ease and convenience. The question is: Which brand is worth buying?
To find the very best canned chili, our editors sampled six different brands that you’re likely to find at your local grocery store and online. We opted for classic canned chili with beans and ground meat—primarily beef and pork, though the Trader Joe’s brand contains ground turkey. We heated each chili according to the package directions, spooned it into bowls, and sampled them in random order, without knowing which was which. After eating our way through many bowls of chili, we tabulated the results and crowned an overall winner, along with two worthy contenders that we’d be happy to bring on a camping trip.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
The Criteria
Great meat-and-bean chili should have a robust, meaty flavor. There should be a rich, complex chile profile, with balanced fruity, hot, and slightly bitter notes. The beans should be tender, creamy, and intact, and the meat should be bite-size. The chili should be well-seasoned without being overly salty. A touch of sweetness and acidity is welcome, but it shouldn’t be cloying or overly tart. The sauce should be thick and smooth enough to cling to the ingredients without being gloopy or thin.
Overall Winner
Wendy’s Chili With Beans
Though this chili wasn’t a hit with all our editors, it still earned above-average marks for flavor and texture. “Good chili texture,” wrote our associate visuals director, Amanda, who thought the flavor was OK but found it a bit too sweet. Similarly, our associate culinary director, Laila, appreciated some of its sweetness but felt it needed a touch more salt to bring out the flavor of the beans. Our visuals editor, Jessie, liked that the chili wasn’t too starchy or thick, and I appreciated the uniform sizes of all the ingredients. Our editorial director, Daniel, found this one quite tomato-forward, a flavor profile that he didn’t mind but that didn’t line up with his ideal for chili.
Runners-Up
Hormel Chili With Beans
“Tons-o-beans (not a complaint),” wrote Daniel, who liked the texture of this chili but found it slightly one-dimensional in flavor. Jessie thought its flavor was mild, but liked that the beans were fully cooked and firm. Amanda thought the beans could have been more flavorful and wished for more variety in the ingredients in this bean-heavy blend. “Cumin-heavy and very warm,” wrote Laila, who did appreciate the subtle note of oregano in this “basic” chili. Meanwhile, I liked the heft and heartiness the abundance of beans brought to this thick chili.
Wolf Brand Chili With Beans
“Very creamy beans, which is nice, but kind of saucy without a ton of chunks,” wrote Daniel, who also noted that he wished the chili had more acidity. Jessie described it as “very saucy” and noted that it had the fewest whole beans—something people who don’t love beans might prefer. Amanda thought it was well-spiced; she picked up on paprika, a strong meaty flavor, and even notes reminiscent of Tabasco. “Seasoning is assertive—more earthy and strong than warm,” wrote Laila, who wished the chili had more warming spices.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Contenders
- Armour Chili With Beans
- Hormel Chili With Beans
- Stop & Shop Canned Chili With Beans
- Trader Joe’s Turkey Chili With Beans
- Wendy’s Chili With Beans
- Wolf Brand Chili With Beans
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
Canned chili is a complex product with a surprisingly long ingredient list. Most brands use a similar base: beef or other meat, cooked beans, onions, water, spices such as onion powder and paprika, and some form of tomato—whether purée, paste, or diced. Nearly all canned chilis include thickeners and stabilizers, most commonly modified cornstarch, corn flour, or soy flour, typically making up less than 2% of the total product. These additives give the chili its characteristic thickness. Some brands also contain yeast extracts, which contribute savory, umami depth.
Our winner, Wendy’s Chili With Beans, contains beef, beef broth, kidney and pinto beans, tomato purée, diced tomatoes, onions, spices such as onion powder and chili pepper, celery, and green bell peppers. It contains lactic and citric acids for tang, as well as thickeners, including cornstarch, tapioca starch, and xanthan gum, for consistency. Notably, Wendy’s includes beef tallow and smoke flavor, ingredients not found in the other chilis we tasted, which add body and help round out the chili’s sweet, salty, and acidic elements.
The two runners-up—Hormel Chili With Beans and Wolf Brand Chili With Beans—use a blend of beef and pork, a choice that amplifies meatiness and richness. Both contain fewer emulsifiers and stabilizers than Wendy’s. Wolf Brand, in particular, includes whole rolled oats, an unusual thickener that contributes both body and texture. Like Wendy’s, it also contains beef broth, which provides additional depth of flavor.
Our Testing Methodology
All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets, ranking the samples according to various criteria. All data is tabulated, and results are calculated with no editorial input to provide the most impartial representation of actual results possible.
