This Is The 'Magic Ingredient' Behind Kent Rollins' Famous Cowboy Chili

Kent Rollins knows a thing or two about cowboys, including their history, lifestyle, and particularly, what they ate. His ultra-popular YouTube channel and television appearances feature him talking about these and other topics related to life on the American frontier. As a chuckwagon cook, Rollins has highlighted and prepared countless cowboy meals for viewers, but it's chili that he's been perfecting for the last half-century. He told Allrecipes that there is one element he considers to be his "magic ingredient" in this cold-weather staple: chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.

Chipotle peppers are smoked and dried jalapeños. They are then rehydrated and canned in a tangy, tomato-based sauce called adobo. By the time you crack open a can to use them, the peppers are soft, pliable, and easy to chop up and add to your chili. These dark peppers are roughly as spicy as fresh jalapeños, but they (and the adobo sauce they're in) also impart a deep, smoky flavor to your chili. In his recipe, Rollins adds three to four chipotle chiles after he's browned ground meat and onions, along with canned Ro-Tel, water, seasonings, beans, and tomato sauce, so the peppers help create a rich base of flavor. As the dish cooks, the peppers flavor the whole pot.

The fact that you can get so many layers of flavor from a single ingredient like chipotle peppers in adobo makes them a great item to have on hand, and not just for when you whip up a pot of chili. While Kent Rollins may call them his magic ingredient, there are plenty of other cowboy dishes he adds them to. They can help impart that signature earthy, campfire-smoke flavor to baked beans, sloppy joes, and even stuffed meatloaf.

But don't reserve your cans of chipotle peppers in adobo for traditional cowboy dishes alone. They happen to be a next-level addition to mashed potatoes, are delicious when added to a glaze for baked salmon, and can amp up your Baja California fish tacos when you add them to the dish's traditional white sauce made with sour cream, mayo, and lime juice. For a unique and absolutely delicious cocktail, mix some adobo sauce into your next bloody mary.