Cincinnati Chili, Three-Way

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups Brown lentils (dry), rinsed
• 3 cups Cremini mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp Canola oil
• 2 Yellow onion, one diced, one for topping
• 4 cloves Garlic, minced
• 1 can Crushed tomatoes, no salt added
• 4 cups Low-sodium vegetable broth
• 2 tbsp Chili powder
• 1 ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp Ground allspice
• ¼ tsp Ground cloves
• 1 tbsp Unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp Apple cider vinegar
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 ¼ tsp Kosher salt
• 12 oz Semolina pasta (dry), spaghetti
• 6 oz Sharp cheddar, grated fine
• 1 can Kidney beans, canned no-salt-added, warmed (optional)

Method

1. Cook the mushrooms and diced onion in the oil for 10 minutes until browned and dry. Add the garlic for 1 minute.
2. Add every spice, the cocoa and the bay leaves and stir for 45 seconds in the hot pan.
3. Add the lentils, tomatoes, broth and salt. Simmer, partly covered, 45 minutes. Cincinnati chili is deliberately thin — it is a sauce, not a stew.
4. Add the vinegar. Taste: it should be faintly sweet and warmly spiced, more like a Greek meat sauce than like chili. That is exactly what it descends from — Macedonian immigrants opened the first parlor in 1922.
5. Boil the spaghetti. Serve it in a shallow bowl with the chili ladled over, then a mountain of finely grated cheddar. That is a three-way. Add beans for a four-way, diced raw onion for a five-way.
6. Oyster crackers on the side, and hot sauce if you want it.

Notes

✨ The restaurant touch

Grate the cheddar as fine as you can, on a microplane if you have one. It should sit on top like snow, not melt in.

🧒 For the kids

Sweet-spiced sauce on spaghetti with cheese on top. Serve it as a two-way — no onions, no beans.

🥡 Leftovers

Keeps 5 days, freezes 3 months. The spices settle and deepen.

Per serving

Computed from USDA FoodData Central values. A planning tool, not medical advice.