The 1-Ingredient Upgrade for Better Chili I Always Do

By Pallavi Mehra

When I was growing up in India, my favorite cozy-weather dinner surprisingly wasn’t an Indian curry: It was my mom’s delicious homemade chili . A few years ago, when I wanted to make her chili myself, my mom finally revealed her secret for a fast, crowd-pleasing pot of chili: bittersweet dark cocoa powder. Dark cocoa powder is usually labeled as Dutch-processed or extra dark.