Old Fashioned Baked Beans
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Thick, smoky, sweet, and savory, this Old Fashioned Baked Beans recipe is one you’ll come back to again and again! Serve these oven baked beans at your next BBQ, picnic, potluck or family dinner and watch your guests lick their plates clean and ask for more! The best baked beans made from scratch!
Baked beans are an American staple. The combination of sweet, savory and smoky flavors makes them irresistibly delicious. Making your own homemade baked beans from scratch is easier to make than you may think, you just need to set aside enough cooking time. They need time to cook low and slow to allow the beans to soak up all those amazing flavors. The perfect make-ahead dish, these baked beans are even better the next day after the flavors have had more time to develop!
What to Serve With Baked Beans
Baked beans is a versatile dish that can be served with any number of mains and sides. Here are some popular options:
- Grilled Meats and Barbecue Ribs
- Burgers, Sliders, or Hot Dogs (e.g. Banzai Burger, Greek Burger)
- Grilled Vegetables (e.g. Grilled Eggplant)
- Fried Chicken
- Skillet Cornbread
- Creamy Coleslaw
- Freezer Slaw
- Macaroni Salad
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Potato Salad
- Broccoli Salad, Pea Salad, Four Bean Salad, or a tossed salad
- Bread Rolls or Buttermilk Biscuits
Can I Make Baked Beans in a Slow Cooker?
Yes. While the traditional method cooking “baked” beans is to bake them in the oven, which is the method we present here, you can also make them in a crock pot. The sauce may be thinner at the end of the cooking time in which case remove the lid towards the end of the cooking to allow some of the liquid to evaporate.
SLOW COOKER METHOD: Follow steps 1 and 2 in the recipe and then pour everything into the slow cooker. Cook on LOW for 6-7 hours or on HIGH for 3-4 hours or until the beans are tender. Open the lid for the last 30 minutes or longer until the sauce has thickened. If the beans are too thick at any point and too much liquid has evaporated, stir in a little extra water.
Why Are My Beans Still Hard After Hours of Cooking?
You’re not alone, this is a not an uncommon problem. From Fine Cooking: “Some beans refuse to soften. You can soak them overnight and then simmer them all day long, and they’re still hard as pebbles. The main causes of this are age and improper storage.”
As dried beans age the pores in the beans that allow water to enter close up which will prevent the beans from softening no matter how long they are cooked.
Be sure to follow the instructions to soak the beans overnight and then boil them for an hour. For especially hard beans one classic trick you can try is to add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to the beans while you’re boiling them (1/4 teaspoon for every pound of beans). Be careful though: If too much is added or if it’s added to beans that aren’t too hard, you could end up with mushy beans.
Baked Beans Recipe
Let’s get started!
Soak the beans overnight in a pot of water. Make sure the beans are covered by at least a couple of inches of water. Drain the beans and put them in a pot of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour. Drain and reserved the bean liquid.
In a large pot or Dutch oven fry the bacon until crispy then add the onions and cook until soft and translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
Stir in the tomato sauce, molasses, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, smoked paprika, salt, pepper and bay leaf.
Add 1 1/2 cups of the reserved bean water and the beans.
Bring everything to a simmer for a minute or two to heat it up.
In the meantime preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Transfer the Dutch oven with the lid on to the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 2 to 3 hours or until the beans are tender and the sauce has thickened, removing the lid during the last 20-30 minutes to help the sauce thicken.
NOTE: If at any point during the cooking process too much liquid evaporates and the beans get dry, add a little more of the reserved bean water. The beans themselves can vary from batch to batch and you may end up either needing to add more liquid if the beans are too dry or you may need to bake the beans longer with the lid off if there is too much liquid. Adjust as needed.
Add more salt the pepper to taste.
Serve immediately or let cool completely and refrigerate until ready to serve. Can be reheated on the stovetop or in the microwave.
Enjoy!
For other classic sides to complement your BBQ or cook-off try my:
- Skillet Cornbread
- Creamy Coleslaw
- Freezer Slaw
- Macaroni Salad
- Potato Salad
- Broccoli Salad
- Pepperoni Pizza Pasta Salad
- Chicken Salad
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Old Fashioned Baked Beans
Equipment
- Dutch oven I love this one from Lodge!
Ingredients
- 1 pound dried navy beans
- 8 ounces thick cut bacon , diced
- 1 medium yellow onion , finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic , minced
- 1/2 cup plain tomato sauce or ketchup
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 bay leaf
Instructions
- Place the dried beans in a pot of water covered by a few inches of water and let soak overnight. Drain the beans, place them back in the pot with fresh water and bring to a boil. Simmer for one hour, then drain, reserving the liquid. See NOTE.
- In a Dutch oven or other oven-proof pot fry the bacon until crispy then add the onions and cook until soft and translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.Stir in the tomato sauce, molasses, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, smoked paprika, salt, pepper and bay leaf.Add 1 1/2 cups of the reserved bean water and the beans.Bring everything to a simmer for a minute or two to heat it up. In the meantime preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
- Transfer the Dutch oven with the lid on to the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 2 to 3 hours or until the beans are tender and the sauce has thickened, removing the lid during the last 20-30 minutes to help the sauce thicken. NOTE: If at any point during the cooking process too much liquid evaporates and the beans get dry, add a little more of the reserved bean water. The beans themselves can vary from batch to batch and you may end up either needing to add more liquid if the beans are too dry or you may need to bake the beans longer with the lid off if there is too much liquid. Adjust as needed.Add more salt the pepper to taste.Serve immediately or let cool completely and refrigerate until ready to serve. Can be reheated on the stovetop or in the microwave.
- SLOW COOKER METHOD: Follow steps 1 and 2 and then pour everything into the slow cooker. Cook on LOW for 6-7 hours or on HIGH for 3-4 hours or until the beans are tender. Open the lid for the last 30 minutes or longer until the sauce has thickened. If the beans are too thick at any point and too much liquid has evaporated, stir in a little extra water.
Notes
Nutrition
Originally published on The Daring Gourmet August 30,2020
Hi, I’m Kimberly Killebrew and welcome to Daring Gourmet where you'll find delicious originals, revitalized classics, and simply downright good eats from around the world! Originally from Germany, later raised in England, world-traveled, and now living in the U.S., from my globally-influenced kitchen I invite you to tour the world through your taste buds!
Incredible. I actually made a ton of changes to the recipe: only had sweet paprika, white vinegar, did not have Worcestershire sauce or mustard and had to make some sort of molasses myself (with cane sugar, water, honey and some orange juice), and since I had canned beans and eat this for breakfast, I just cooked everything in the pan for about 15 min. And this still was amazing. Definitely want to try to adhere to the original recipe next time but still ended up great.
Huge favourite at our house. I make these Moroccan chicken sausages with them, and they’ve become one of the most requested meals I make. I find I have to use more bean liquid than the recipe calls for, but maybe that’s the just the beans I use.
That sounds awesome, Jim, I’m thrilled that this has become a regular (and those Moroccan sausages sound great!), thank you so much!
Great recipe. I doubled (2 lbs of beans) the recipe and found that I needed even more bean liquid than the suggested adjustment. Instead of water or bean liquid (that I ran out of…) I added beef stock. In addition, I added a couple of canned chipotle peppers and a few tablespoons of the liquid from the can. Processed in pint jars of 80 minutes at 10psi. They tasted great!
Fantastic, thank you so much for the feedback, John, I’m happy you enjoyed it!
Hi, I have a question for you will be ok if I added green bell peppers to the recipe
Absolutely, Christopher! My mom adds them to her baked beans and they contribute a nice zesty favor.
I have another question can I add ground chuck to the recipe and season it with salt and pepper
Sure!
Trying this out this week!
Can you pressure can this recipe?
Hi Jennifer, I can’t see why not but I can’t give you an official go-ahead.
I used organic, grass fed, 93% lean ground beef. I just cooked it until it was almost fully cooked (pink in the middle) because I knew it would finish cooking with the beans. It is now my go-to recipe. Thank you so much. It was the best baked beans I’ve ever had.
Thanks so much, Dawn, I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the baked beans!
Absolutely delicious. But to save time, I used a jar of Randall great northern beans and cooked in oven for 1 1/2 hours then removed lid for 30 minutes. My husband was in awe. His favorite meal is homemade beans. Thank you for such a tasty recipe.
Great recipe! I’ve used it twice using the slow cooker method and received rave reviews. Thanks Kimberly!
That’s fantastic, Mark, thank you so much!
Would you do anything special if doubling? Thanks!
Hi Vanessa, no everything will remain the same but just be sure to reserve double the amount of the bean cooking water.
This is a middling recipe. I always start with a few LARGE cans of Van Camp’s pork n’ beans (depending on how many people are going to be served) and then I use almost the same ingredients as this recipe, but I skip the BBQ sauce – I detest BBQ sauce in any form for any reason. You can actually make your own by mixing ketcup and mustard and worchestershire sauce and those things are already in the recipe I use, so why repeat yourself? I just am not a fan of smoky flavors, never was. My DH loved to BBQ outdoors but he also loved pork ribs on the grill and stuff like that. Ewww. The only thing I like smoked is ham. No honey hams for me, man! Those taste gross.
I only cooked 1lb (bag) of beans. I added big slabs of salt pork, but added extra of the molasses and brown sugar for a 2lb bag recipe. Absolutely amazing! I have misplaced my grandmother’s recipe and this is pretty spot on to what I remember as a kid in the 60s and 70s. I added water several times to keep them moist over the six hour cooking time. They came out perfect.
Fantastic, thank you so much for the feedback, GilmoreGirl!
Seasonings are good
But you need to cover the 1# of beans with water probably – 4 cups
Bring to boil 2-3 min lower to simmer for about 1 hr or til a bit beyond Al dente
Double ( I used tomato sauce )seasonings w/ the exception of the sugar (your choice)
Use all the liquid in baking process
If beans during cooking process, absorb all the liquid add some more half a cup at a time
Finally, a recipe that doesn’t use mushy canned beans in preservative sauce! Take the extra time, make extra healthy food.
Can I use different beans? For instance, pinto beans or northern beans?
Hi Karen, I don’t recommend pinto beans but yes, you can use northern beans.
Didn’t have any luck with this recipe sadly. After several hrs of tending & cooking, turned out dry, still not completely cooked and even had some burning around the edges and bottom. Very disappointing.
Hi Nonnie, I’m sorry it didn’t turn out for you. It sounds like you definitely needed to go with the recommendation in the recipe to add more liquid as needed during the cooking processes.
Served at a group dinner to rave reviews and recipe requests. Really good beans!
Fantastic, Nancy, thank you so much!