The difference between chili and spaghetti sauce

Early on in my cooking experience it occurred to me that two of my favorite things to make were really very similar. The common core of these two dishes:

• tomato
• onion
• pepper
• garlic
• optionally: meat or other protein (beans not in scope for this bullet point)

There you have it - with those four or five ingredients you're lacking only seasoning to create a passable or even excellent Italian sauce or chili.

Note: As the president of the onions and peppers fan club (the ingredients, not the blog. Lord knows everybody hates the blog), I'm not going to entertain the merits or lack thereof for making either dish without these key ingredients.

While the two are basically similar the differences and variations are important. The big difference is the herbs and spices that separate the two. The sauce gets a blend of aromatic herbs. The chili gets, well, chilis, but also cumin, perhaps paprika, and other earthy spices.

In my mind, and in my kitchen, this is where chili gets interesting as it's suited to share its spice palette with cuisine from elsewhere on that delicious latitude- spice blends from North Africa, the Middle East, and India work well in chili. Take a look at a recipe for Madras Lentils - it's basically Indian chili and it's one of my favorites.

Back to comparison: there are the other ingredients that may work naturally in one and feel weirdly out of place in the other. Here's a game - I'll list some ingredients and you, dear reader, decide whether each would be best in one or the other:

• olives
• beans (don't start Texas, I don't want to hear it)
• chocolate/cocoa
• garden veggies (e.g. squash, carrot, zucchini)
• mushrooms
• jalapeno
• poblano
• red chili
• chili flakes
• spinach

Most of those are strongly in one camp or the other, but there are a few wobblers - especially the chilis.

There are other differences in both preparation and application. One that comes to mind - long slices of bell pepper and onion would feel out of place in chili, but can be a feature of a sauce intended for long noodles and/or served with a link of Italian sausage. As for application, I don't see myself sitting down to eat a bowl of spaghetti sauce sans spaghetti; whereas chili on its own is just fine. Again, the game:

• alone in a cup/bowl
• with noodles
• with rice
• on a pizza or flatbread
• topping a hotdog/sausage
• topping nachos
• on a sandwich
• as a dip

While one or the other feels right for some of these, I can argue both sides for as many. The lines aren't always clear and what you're open to defines what's possible. A chili pizza can be a thing to behold.

I asked DALL-E for help illustrating this article and the image I got makes my point better than I could have hoped:

can you make a side-by-side image that helps illustrate the difference between chili and spaghetti sauce?

Even our machine overlords are unsure of where the lines should be drawn.

So why bother comparing and contrasting these two staples, chili and sauce? I think it helps me reflect on how maybe I'm one person, but more. What looks to others to be a single, easily categorized life belies a rich and complex inner self that's gloriously and painfully aware of its own possibilities. I might be just a combination of some core ingredients, a bag of flesh, but I am also a weird amalgamation of my choices, my actions, my unrealized aspirations, and my imagination. Am I a blogger, a culinary wizard, a father, son, husband? In what context am I most delicious? What adjustments can I make internally to change how the world categorizes me? Today I might be just some meaty chili, but tomorrow with a few tweaks and the help of some eggs, I can be a rich shakshouka. A shakshouka that is still me.