The Midwestern Way To Eat Chili (It's So Much Better)

A bowl of chili is all well and good, but it’s virtually worthless without solid carbs on the side. Be it cornbread, flour or corn tortillas, tortilla chips, or good old saltines, chili needs a bready sidekick to truly be a meal.

I thought I’d tried everything possible alongside chili, but a few years ago I learned about a little-known Midwestern pairing from a few of my friends, and now I’m a total convert. You have to try it to understand.

What I still don’t understand is how I managed to spend decades living smack dab where this regional chili combo supposedly thrives and never once saw it in action. The mystery meal seemingly had no lore—only people who quietly practiced it.

A Midwest/Appalachian Specialty

It’s a peanut butter sandwich. Yes, chili with a peanut butter sandwich. Not a cinnamon roll, which is a better-known chili accompaniment popular in the Heartland. The chili/peanut butter hot zone is on the fringes of the Midwest, where the Rust Belt and Appalachia collide. The internet told me this practice happens in scattered pockets over not just Ohio, where I’m from, but also Indiana, West Virginia, southern Illinois, and a bit of Kentucky. 

My friend Melanie Tienter, who contributed a chili recipe to my first cookbook, introduced me to this concept. She grew up in various towns in eastern West Virginia. “My family had peanut butter sandwiches or peanut butter and crackers with chili,” she told me. “We use white bread, just peanut butter.” 

The Sandwich Is on the Side

Mind you, it’s not a peanut butter and chili sandwich. “It’s a peanut butter sandwich on the side,” Melanie clarified. “I dip it, but it’s a personal preference.”

When my friend Jessica Baldwin also mentioned eating chili with peanut butter sandwiches, I asked her to chime in. She now lives in Athers, Ohio but grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia. “While my mom insisted on having Smucker’s all natural peanut butter at her house, I preferred the Peter Pan at Granny’s because it added a nice sweetness to balance the acidic tomatoes, and a smooth, soft texture to balance the density of the meat and kidney beans.”  

I agree with Jessica. Regular old processed creamy peanut butter offsets the chili better than grittier natural peanut butter. That touch of sweetness with salty, tangy spiciness recalls a good southeast Asian peanut sauce. 

Jessica made an excellent point about the character of chili in this region. “Our chili was in no way like what you would find at a chili cook-off. It was a can of stewed tomatoes, a can of kidney beans, sautéed ground beef, and a packet of chili seasoning. Maybe some tomato paste. Maybe.” 

A Fixture of School Cafeteria Menus

The somewhat soupy nature of Midwestern chili (what I call “church basement chili”) needs help to make it stick to your ribs. It’s no surprise, then, that chili and peanut butter sandwiches were once common on cafeteria menus. Online forums and social media comments discussing this often have a nostalgic tinge. “In high school the lunch menu would literally say ‘chili with peanut butter sandwich,” one reported.

Where this all originated is anybody’s guess, but my hunch is it wasn’t the innovation of one single person. Mothers on budgets and cafeteria ladies feeding hungry students likely reached for two of the cheapest staples on hand to round out their pots of chili. That chili might have an affinity for peanut butter sandwiches was merely serendipitous. 

While cafeteria menus might not feature the pairing as frequently today, it’s still very much a thing in homes. I asked the guys in my office if they were aware of the peanut butter sandwich/chili duo. To my shock, two out of four of them had!

“I used to come home from school and eat chili and a peanut butter sandwich while I watched Star Trek,” one of them said.

Then I asked if any of them had connections to Indiana. “I’m from Indiana and I’ve never heard of it,” said another officemate.

Such conversations prove why chili with peanut butter sandwiches isn’t iconic Midwestern fare the way hotdish, gooey butter cake, and Johnny Marzetti are. In a way, that only makes it truer to what we might call the Midwestern-Appalachian Interzone. It’s hearty, pragmatic, and maybe a wee bit trashy. As with many of the best Midwestern ways of eating, this one is just something people do and quietly love. No big deal.