Favorite Baked Beans recipes?

LaurieLovesLearning
LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
edited November 2020 in Cooking

I am looking for a good baked beans recipe from someone who makes an awesome one. There has to be someone here who has perfected their own!

I have one (Boston Baked Beans) in my slow cooker book but no longer have a slow cooker, so I would have to adjust cooking times.

I want to know if yours might be better.

I bought pinto beans if it makes any difference.

Comments

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin
    edited May 2020

    I normally use Navy or Great northern beans. You can make them with bacon, but fat cut off or barbecued pork, smoked low and slow over hickory and oak is best. After soaking your beans, if dry (1-2 pounds dry)..... cook down several onions in pork fat. Add a can of tomato paste, some garlic, a half cup or so of molasses, some dry mustard … or prepared mustard, but remember it has vinegar it, a spoonful f Worcestershire sauce, about 1/4th cup apple cider vinegar and a good amount of dried hot pepper. Stir in your beans, with water or broth to cover. Cook low and slow, preferably on the smoker with your pork dripping fat into the beans. If in the oven, cover with foil. And, if you have a few bones to toss in with the beans, all the better. Cumin or chili powder is a very good addition, so is parsley. Salt and pepper to taste. BTW, maple syrup is more traditional than molasses. Native Americans in NY and Canada were cooking beans with onions, sea salt and maple syrup, in big clay pots, buried under huge bonfires, many centuries ago. Baked beans are a truly native dish. Boston became a major center in the molasses trade, back when the British economy ran on sugar, slavery and rum. So, molasses became the thing to use. I do love the depth of flavor molasses provides. Being less sweet and a little bitter, molasses is my favorite sweetener.... next to true tupelo/sweet gum honey.

  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2020

    I like this one, with hamburger and at several kinds of beans. Butter beans make it as far as I'm concerned, but I expect that any bean or combination would be good. Without hamburger would probably work, too. But bacon and brown sugar and BBQ sauce are nonnegotiable for me. I leave out the white sugar.


  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    Oh, a ham bone (and ham fat if you have it) work great if you don't have barbecued/smoked fresh meat.

  • blevinandwomba
    blevinandwomba Posts: 813 ✭✭✭✭

    @Mary Linda Bittle My favorite is butter/lima beans as well

    I don't have a go to recipe, just a few pointers. Beans taste better with some source of fat, meat or otherwise. Also, it's not traditional, but good quality soy sauce or coconut aminos can really improve the sauce, especially if you are going for a savory baked bean.

    Not a traditional baked bean, but I've baked white runner beans( a lot like large limas) with cumin, smoked paprika, garlic, and lots of mild roasted green chilies. I could eat myself sick on that.

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @judsoncarroll4 Thank you for sharing. I actually just ordered some red kidney bean, navy bean, and some lentil seeds to grow this season and was hoping to find a good recipe for baked beans!