Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café--Absolutely Delicious Baked Beans

About six months ago, I started making a very concerted effort to incorporate more beans into our diet.  We have refried beans frequently and a few different kinds of chili as well, but beyond that, beans just hadn’t been a big part of our life. 

I needed to change that.

And one thing that my husband was always buying, despite the fact that it was loaded with high fructose corn syrup, was the baked beans.  He’d come home with flats of the cheap kind, the watery pork n’ beans with microscopic pork and macroscopic chunks of fat.  It was driving me crazy.

So it was time to take action.

I got onto Food.com and finally found what turns out to be the perfect baked bean recipe.  Perfect in that it not only tastes great, but also in the fact that it doesn’t call for store-bought baked beans.  Just regular canned beans, and in fact, you can even substitute beans that you just cooked up in the Instapot.  (I also suspect this recipe would adapt quite easily to be made entirely in an Instapot, but I haven’t tried that yet.)  The original recipe called for fresh garlic and ginger; I adapted it to use the dry powder versions of both, making it a bit more food-storage friendly. 

Absolutely Delicious Baked Beans

4 slices bacon, cut into ½” pieces

2 large onions, finely chopped

¾ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon ginger

2 15 ounce cans white beans, rinsed and drained

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup ketchup

¼ cup molasses

¼ cup barbecue sauce

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 ½ tablespoons prepared mustard

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the bacon in a large skillet until the fat is lightly browned, about 5 minutes.  Drain the grease and save it, reserving 2 tablespoons.  In the reserved bacon grease, sauté the onions until tender, about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Stir in the remaining ingredients.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Pour mixture into an oven-proof casserole dish.  Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until thickened.   

Notes:  When I was in a hurry one day, I substituted dried minced onion (about ¾ cup) for the fresh onions.  It worked really well—nobody noticed.

Family reviews:  Wow, this is what baked beans are supposed to taste like.  Thick, not runny, bacon pieces that can actually be seen without a microscope, with hints of garlic, ginger, and sweetness from the molasses.  We’ll be enjoying these often. 

Links to related posts:

Don’t Waste the Bacon Grease! 

Truly Divine Refried Beans  

DIY Prepared Yellow Mustard 

Cooking Dry Beans Faster and Other Tips for Softening Beans