Baked Beans Forever
a versatile dish for tired cooks
I love baked beans. From a can, made from scratch, somewhere in between? Yes please. But for some reason I almost never make them. It’s like I just forget about them until I see them on a BBQ spread come summer and then fall in love again. But baked beans should be a fall and winter food. Full stop. I was going to put together a long recipe for making them from scratch, not labor intensive though it does take HOURS, but I always want to be useful for you all. Those beans would have been amazing but most of you don’t have the time or the will to cook like that. So here is a cheater version with all the flavor of the longer cooked variety. You can easily throw this together after work or while you’re doing chores on the weekend and have a versatile dish to eat for several days. See? Useful.
These beans are great as the star of dinner, served over baked sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, roasted winter squash, some polenta like I did, or a slice of toasted bread. I like to pair them with a side salad or a pot of braised greens from Hungry as Hell because beans and greens are meant to be together. I mean, serve them however you want but we could all use more leafy greens. Also this is a great dish to bring to a potluck because they go with so many winter dishes that no one will notice that the weird vegan only brought beans. Don’t let them bean shame you. One bite and everyone will shut up and clean their plates.
I use a large skillet with an oven safe lid to make these so I can throw them right in the oven from the stove top but if you don’t have one, just transfer the beans into a wide oven safe dish with a lid. You can use something wide so that more beans are covered by the liquid as it bakes and thickens. If you squeeze them into a dish that’s taller rather than wide, the top layer of the beans will get dry and won’t be flavorful. These beans deserve better so plan that shit out. If you can’t get your hands on the fresh herbs, dried is fine. Just remember the standard adjustment 1 tablespoon fresh herbs = 1 teaspoon dried. Always and forever.
Yum! I love baked beans. My mom was known for hers. People would request her to bring them to every potluck. I won’t tell her “secret” but let’s just say these look a bit more sophisticated 😹 I just love the recipe secrets from the 80s.. I love the addition of rosemary and sage to make them wintery inspired! Will definitely try these on top of baked potatoes or maybe sweet potatoes as suggested!
These look awesome! Would it be possible to keep putting the recipe in the body of the email as well as the PDF? It makes it easier to pull it into the recipe app I use, and also to search in my inbox!