Barbecue Bacon Cheeseburger Chili is an easy dinner recipe with lots of flavor! This kid-friendly chili makes a great fall or winter dinner!
Chili is one of our favorite meals. I love how flexible chili can be, so I regularly make several different kinds of chili.
This Barbecue Bacon Cheeseburger Chili is mild but, between the bacon, barbecue sauce, and spices, it still has lots of flavor.
This chili is also really easy to put together. It's the perfect easy dinner for the coming chilly fall and winter nights!

Barbecue Bacon Cheeseburger Chili
Ingredients
- 2 lbs . lean ground beef
- 4 slices thick-cut bacon
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 -15 oz . cans kidney beans rinsed and drained
- 3 - 14 oz . cans diced tomatoes
- 16-18 oz . bottle of barbecue sauce
- 1 T. liquid smoke
- 1 T. cumin
- 1 teaspoon . chili powder feel free to add more
- 1 teaspoon . unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon . smoked paprika
- Shredded cheese
Instructions
- In a large pot or Dutch oven, brown the ground meat. Drain, and set aside.
- Cook the bacon. Set bacon aside, and drain all but about 1 tablespoon of the grease.
- Cook onion in bacon grease until soft, about 3-5 minutes.
- Return the browned ground beef to the pot.
- Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine.
- Crumble bacon over the chili, and stir in.
- Cover, and simmer over medium-low heat, stirring as needed, for about 1-2 hours.
- Serve sprinkled with shredded cheese.
Notes
Nutrition
Kris
I was wondering if this recipe could be adapted to the Instant Pot? Curious if anyone has tried that?
Kate
Great question! I've been working my way through my recipes adapting them for the IP, but this is one that I haven't gotten to yet. Maybe someone else has tried it?
JEANNE-ANN DAVIS
Crock pots cooking tends to make chili too liquidy.
Kate
They definitely can!
JEANNE-ANN DAVIS
Kate,
I plan to make this for my church's chili cook off to help send Teens to a conference but ummm - wheres the cheese? Topping? There is no cheese in your ingredients list.
Jeanne
Kate
Jeanne,
Sorry for the confusion! I just serve it with a sprinkle of cheese on top. I've added that note to the recipe for clarification. Please let me know if you have any other questions, and good luck!
Kate
JEANNE-ANN DAVIS
I won the cook off in the Traditional chili category with this recipe! Thanks.
Kate
Congratulations!! Thank you for taking the time to come back and let me know!
Pam
I won 2nd place in a chili cookoff today with this recipe! I am a wimp with spicy flavors, so I really like that this one has lots of flavor without the heat. :)
Kate
Yay! Congrats!! That's awesome! =D
Carmen
We used your recipe for a Chili Cook Off at work and won the People's Choice Award. We are a small hospital in Iowa and there were about 8 other Chili's we competed against. Thank you for such a great recipe and we had tons of fun with decorating and sharing it with our co-workers. We decorated our table with the ingredients. We had dried kidney beans for our "confetti", and set out a bottle of liquid smoke, BBQ Sauce, plastic tomato, onion and cheese, and a rubber bacon cheeseburger borrowed from our dietitian, and a can of cocoa, plus some gummi cheeseburgers.
Kate
Congrats!! I love this! Using dried beans as confetti is such a great idea! It sounds like you totally deserved to win. =)
Michelle
Could you make this in a crock pot? If so, how? Also, how many people does it feed?
Kate
I haven't made this chili in the crock pot. If you try it, please let me know how it goes! This recipe makes about 10 servings.
Brandon
I'm going to make this in the crock pot tomorrow for a chili cook off, I'm known for my bbq so I was really excited to find a chili that I could incorporate my style of cooking into a chili!
Kate
I'm so glad! I hope that your cook off went well!