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I made these tonight and they were delicious! I was worried they wouldn’t be sweet enough, but they were perfect. So glad to have a alternative to my sugar-laden recipe. Thanks, Lindsay!
Lori
Well, lookee here!
This pot o glory is the new-to-me wonder known as HOMEMADE BAKED BEANS. They are saucy, semi-creamy, brown sugar sweet + smoky bacon salty, and deliciously comforting. Just five basic ingredients at work here: bacon, onions, navy beans, molasses, and mustard.
And then of course, there’s the brown sugar because it’s the right thing to do when it comes to a baked beans recipe – annnnd because Bjork and I recently finished our third 60-day sugar free commitment which left me feeling extra brown-sugar generous with myself this weekend. 💃🏼
I need to explain one thing real quick: this little baked beans recipe action is happening on this here blog the day after the fourth of July weekend. When, in fact, it would have made more sense to post a baked beans recipe sometime before the fourth of July weekend.
How to even explain this?
I totally was not planning to post this recipe, which is why the timing is a little bit off. *excuses* But let’s be real: this really just comes down to who I am as a person: LATE.
On Saturday, with no blog post in mind, I made the beans and fell so in love with them that the food blogger within couldn’t help but be brought to life. I snapped a few pictures of the goodness in my pretty red pot before hopping in the car to drive back to our hometown for a little family fourth of July shindig.
And shindig it was! We had lots of holiday weekend food, Minnesota-style, involving (in addition to the beans) dad’s grilled hamburgers, artichoke pasta salad, sour cream and cheddar Lay’s for which my love knows no bounds 💕🙈, broccoli salad, watermelon slices, Grandma’s jello salad, and homemade lemonade.
Rather than go on and on and on and on about a super easy, house-smells-delicious homemade brown sugar baked beans recipe (I could, I assure you), I’m just going to blast you with a few pictures of my family’s celebration from this holiday weekend.
Because what are Mondays good for if not mindlessly looking at friends’ pictures online instead of doing real work? I only say it because I know it.
The good news bad news situation here is that the amount of baked beans I made was completely perfect for our group of eleven people. Good news meaning I actually sort of guesstimated the right amount of food for once in my life. Bad news meaning no leftovers. Are you silently shaming me for wanting leftover brown sugar baked beans in my fridge right now? UGH don’t answer.
Here’s to summer barbecues and get-togethers and grill outs involving homemade brown sugar baked beans! Cause it feels good (and smells good and tastes good) to make real food from scratch. 🎉👊🏼 Also, in the process of baking these, your house will get infused with the scents of brown sugar and bacon amazingness. So, like, duh.
Oh, and the pile of cheddar & sour cream Lay’s that I’ve hoarded to go with my real food, made-from-scratch baked beans? NEVERMIND THAT YOU GUYS. Srsly. Nothing to see here.
Happy summering!
One last note: you will need a pretty heavy duty pot for this recipe because we will be switching from the stovetop to the oven, and you guys, I need you to know that this red Lodge Dutch Oven that you’re see in the pictures is just EVERYTHING to my cooking life. I use it all the time and I feel like such a pioneer woman when I use it because it’s rustic and red and gives off the best soul food vibes.
I don’t have a ton of cookware (a mishmash of 6 pots/pans, to be exact), but this one is a MUST for me. Highly recommend if you’re looking for something in the heavy oven proof pot department!
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Homemade Baked Beans
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: 10–12 servings 1x
Description
Homemade Brown Sugar Baked Beans! They are saucy, semi-creamy, brown sugar sweet + smoky bacon salty, and deliciously comforting. Five basic ingredients!
Ingredients
- 12 ounces bacon, cut into pieces
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 15-ounce cans navy beans, drained and rinsed
- 1/3 cup molasses
- 1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
- a generous pinch of black pepper
- 1 cup hot water (more as needed)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
- Cook the bacon in a large, oven-proof pot over medium high heat. When the bacon is browned (about 10 minutes), remove from heat.
- Add the onions and the beans on top of the bacon in the pot. Whisk the molasses, mustard, and pepper together and pour over everything. Add the hot water (I actually didn’t measure my water – I just poured water from the kettle until I started to see it under the beans).
- Bake for 30 minutes, stir, and bake for another 20-30 minutes. Continue this process until the beans are sticky and thick and deep golden brown (for me, it was about 1 1/2 hours total time in oven). Add water to adjust consistency as needed. Remove from the oven and stir in the brown sugar and salt to taste.
Notes
I didn’t drain the grease out of the pan after frying the bacon, but you definitely could get rid of SOME of it if you’re more health conscious than I was on this particular fourth of July holiday weekend. However, make sure to leave at least a little bit because the fat helps to bind the sauce together and make the whole thing sticky/saucy/wonderful.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 mins
- Category: Side Dish
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: baked beans, bacon baked beans, sugar baked beans
Disclaimer: this post contains an affiliate link for that pretty red Lodge Dutch Oven. If you don’t want to buy it on Amazon, look for it at Target (that’s where I got mine). I ♡ it BIG TIME.
Hi Lindsey, this looks great, but I wanted to make these for a barbecue today and I don’t have molasses. Can I substitute extra brown sugar? I know it doesn’t have as much of a depth of flavor. 🤔
Yes, you can add an extra 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce if you have it, to add some depth!
Any idea of how long to leave cook them in the crockpot?
I just bought a 4.5 Lodge enameled cast iron Dutch oven. Do I need to adjust the ingredients, certainly not the bacon amount though!
We’re guessing the same amounts should be fine here. Your Dutch oven will just be a bit more full!
Can I get your recipe for Artichoke Pasta Salad. 😀
I was just curious why you add the brown sugar at the end? I wouldn’t think it would burn incorporated within the beans and I would think the brown sugar flavor would intensify while cooking. This looks yummy and I will try it.
These beans turned out AWESOME! These will be made for every single BBQ. 🙂
What if I use dried beans? Any tweaks? I assumed canned were seasoned already
This is not homemade
Do you grow your own beans or buy them in a bag at a store. If you don’t grow your own beans, that’s not homemade either. Sheesh!!!
Kind of a let-down, looked so good, thought it was homemade like the blog says, but it’s not. Canned beans are not homemade.
Another Lori. We had this yesterday. Absolutely delicious! Left out bacon. Kids went crazy.
Glad to hear that, Lori! 🙂
I made these tonight and they were delicious! I was worried they wouldn’t be sweet enough, but they were perfect. So glad to have a alternative to my sugar-laden recipe. Thanks, Lindsay!
That’s awesome, Lori!
Hi there, this looks delicious!
These look so delish! However, I saw the words “artichoke pasta salad” and wanted some immediately. I dearly love artichokes!
It’s soooo good! it’s my grandma’s recipe! I should get it from her.
My mom always make homemade baked beans when we were growing up! So good! Your recipe sounds and looks so good and easy (mom used soaked dried beans). The only thing I’d add would be a little ketchup & bbq sauce cocktail. It not only lends to the smoky, sweet taste but it also help develop the deep red-brown look normally associated with baked beans! Gosh! Now I want baked beans – thanks Lindsay!!! 🙂
This looks fantastic! I love the photos you took of your family get together!
I would love to see more posts about your sugar detox. I recently bought the 21DSD book but am nervous about starting. I would be interested in seeing what all you ate while on the plan especially for a whopping 60 days, wow WAY TO GO!
Love your blog, have been reading it for 2 years now!
Jessie
Hey Jessie! Have you seen this post? https://pinchofyum.com/our-life-without-sugar I have been thinking of pulling together some of my best sugar free recipes … I will keep working on that! 🙂
Anyone who would make something with bacon in it, has no compassion for animals and doesn’t care about their health either! Ever bothered to search and see how bacon is made? Seen pictures of sweet baby pigs but are oblivious to how they are regularly punched, beaten and hit on factory farms, especially by workers at Maple Lodge Farms, the producers of pigs for Walmart? They discovered years ago that if cancer cells are put in bacon grease, they multiply a hundred fold! Enjoy your beans!
Nice one, but plants have feeling too, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz/
And you seem to be happy to kill them for your own self gratification. Your comments have no place here, or anywhere on the Internet.
Anyone who reads food blogs and hates bacon has no compassion for the bloggers who work hard on their recipes and also doesn’t love their taste buds enough.
Go sling tofu somewhere else. This blog has a clear message of cheesey bacon-y love and the people here share it. Maybe she gets her bacon from a local farmer? Enjoy your sad bacon-free life!
These look awesome!!! Do you think you could finish them off in the crockpot instead of the oven?
Hi Andrea! Yes I do think that would work!
Lindsay,
This recipe sounds delightful…I’ve already made several of your recipes since discovering your blog and always find them to be of delicious quality!!
Thank you for sharing your recipes and so much of your life. Your enthusiasm and earnest love of food and life certainly bring a smile to my face!!
Randee
Thank you Randee! What a sweet comment.
I found your site via a link, on Matthew Woodwards site and just wanted to say I’m impressed with your site design.
You should so make that SMS message a tweetable. Because it’s hilarious ROFL If you are using wordpress have a look for a plugin called ‘Click To Tweet’ it makes it super easy.
Now on this recipe, can I avoid having to use canned beans? And as I’m in Australia is there another term for ‘navy beans’ as we must call them by another name downunder?
Never mind, I answered my own question. Apparently, we can buy them in bulk food stores, dried of course. Conventional supermarkets in Oz do not sell them dried or in can’s, unless they’ve already become baked beans.
I would still like to try this recipe, so I might have to suck it up and buy a 5 kg bag of dried beans. Whoaa! that’s a lot of baked beans.
FYI: A navy bean is a type of kidney bean, just not the red ones.
Loved the Beans and REALLY loved the dogs. Ha!
While I was reading this article, my husband came in from working in the yard and asked what’s for supper. I wish I had the ingredients and time to make these beans for him. Instead, I’ll just make the chicken and dumplings I was planning. These beans are on the menu for after a quick trip to the store, though. Nice photos.
I love brown butter beans with bacon. They are my favorite. Great that you made at home from scratch I should cook them!
My mom herself is a cooking expert and the way she drives others’ attention towards her by cooking delicious food inspires me, cooking food has always been my choice as a part time activity and sometimes i bake cakes too.
This time i have decided to learn to cook more and more less time consuming stuff so that i can spend my college days by cooking food for myself.
I’m loving these weekend photos along with the baked beans–looks like you had a great weekend filled with delicious food!