Yes. We're going to be
making some homestyle baked beans today.
And one of the things I love about this recipe is it is customizable.
If you want to add
some of your own flavors to it, things you like, maybe you want to make it hot
with some jalapenos in it or anything. Some hot sauce.
I may put some hot sauce in it later. I'm not sure.
This is a really great base recipe and it is that traditional
baking it in the oven
after we get done on the stovetop. And we're going to be spending
quite a bit of time at the stove right now. So let's head over there.
So I have 2 pounds of navy beans in here that are coming up to a boil now.
These soaked overnight covered in water
and just sort of started the softening process.
And what we're going to do now that we're at a
boil is we're going to reduce the heat to a simmer.
We just want these to simmer.
And I've got them out in my nice heavy cast iron Dutch oven.
The enameled one.
Now we're going to let those navy beans simmer for about 45 minutes.
Then we're actually going to drain them and we're going to reserve about a cup
and a half of that liquid that they're simmering in right now.
And then once they're out of the pot,
we're going to get our other ingredients in there,
get them ready before the beans go back in and everything goes into the oven.
So I'll see you back here when these are done
simmering and it's time to move on to the rest of our ingredients.
All right.
We've been simmering for 45 minutes.
You can see that some of that liquid has sort of evaporated, boiled away.
So I've turned that off.
I'm going to go ahead and drain those beans
and then we're going to move on to getting the rest of our ingredients
in this Dutch oven to get some great flavor.
All right.
Our beans are out of the Dutch oven.
I've got a cup and a half of that bean water reserve.
I also have a 32 ounce box of vegetable broth just standing by.
I like to add that in lieu of more water. Now, you could just add water
if you need to.
But if at any time during this cooking process
we're going through for the next few hours,
the water level drops too much and the beans are exposed too much
before they’re softened,
you can just add hot water or like I'm going to do heated up vegetable broth.
Now before I get going on
these ingredients, I'm going to preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
These are baked beans.
And this whole Dutch oven is going to go in there with the lid on
as soon as we get these flavors all incorporated.
First, let's fry up some bacon.
I have a pound of bacon and this is chunked up bacon.
I made this bacon a month or so ago, froze it, vacuum sealed it,
and I just took it out, thawed it, chopped it up.
If you can get a whole piece of bacon from the butcher, just chop it up into cubes.
Doesn't have to be tiny.
This is going to render down.
It's going to get really nice and soft as we bake this.
So let's head back to the stove.
And this bacon does not need to be cooked fully through here.
It's going to finish cooking as this pot of baked beans bakes in the oven.
We just want to get some flavor on this, some caramelization,
a little bit of crispiness in spots.
And you can make these pieces as large or small as you want.
It doesn't matter. Any kind of bacon you want, any flavor,
even if you can only get slices, just chop up the slices, cook them up like this.
All right.
Our bacon has been going for probably about 5 minutes here.
And if you have too much grease left over in the bottom, just, you know,
get some of that out of there, leave maybe a tablespoon or so in there.
All those nice browned bits,
that's what we love.
Now, I'm going to add 2 medium shallots that have been just roughly chopped up.
And my heat right now is about medium low.
Don't need it super hot here.
We just want to soften up these shallots.
Some people like to add garlic
at this point. I prefer shallots. And some people like to add onion
at this point. I prefer shallots.
It's kind of a little bit of a mix of that garlicky onion flavor,
but you can definitely add onion if you want.
This is smelling great here.
And you can make this bacon as crispy as you want, but it's going to soften
as it bakes with all the liquid that's going in here.
So just get it to the state you want.
I want this just a little bit
more with these shallots, maybe another 30 seconds to a minute.
Now I'm going to add a cup of tomato sauce.
This is just tomato sauce, tomato puree, nothing else
added in. No spices, nothing.
Want my heat down on low now.
If you're using cast iron, it retains heat
so well. You don't have to have this heat really high as you move along here.
Now, I'm going to add about a quarter cup of molasses.
I just want to get about two tablespoons of yellow mustard in here.
We're just going to kind of eyeball this.
About a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.
Got a cup of brown sugar going in.
I like dark brown sugar,
but if you use light, no problem with that.
I've got a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar.
Two teaspoons of smoked paprika.
One teaspoon of a coarsely ground black pepper.
One tablespoon of kosher salt.
And now we're going to get our beans back in here.
We're going to add that cup and a half of bean liquid.
I want to stir everything up here and we're going to add some of that
vegetable stock.
We want to bring the liquid level up here because what we're going to do is
bring this to a simmer for a few minutes before it goes in the oven
just to get everybody nice and heated up. Gonna get a really good stir on this,
get these liquids mixed in, get all the flavors mixed in.
Everybody will have a chance to get to know each other in the oven
as this is baking, but we want to give it a head start here.
So I'm going to add some vegetable stock now, just enough to bring the liquid
level up. This is all by eye here.
If I was to guess, I'd say that was maybe three cups.
But we want to give enough liquid
so that the beans as they settle are covered.
Once this goes in the oven, we're going to check it after an hour
to see what our level is.
And if we need to, we'll add some more vegetable stock or you could add water.
Gonna bring this up to a simmer.
And as soon as that comes to a simmer,
I'm going to put the lid on and it is going to go into the oven.
And like I said, we're going to check it after 2 hours.
Usually this takes about 3 hours, but beans are different.
Every time you do, this can be a little longer, a little shorter.
It's when they're tender and when you have that consistency you want.
And we started with the tenderizing of this
by having these soak overnight and then we did a little bit of a simmer
on it for 45 minutes
after bringing it to a boil. We're bringing it back up to a simmer here
and now the oven is going to finish it by bringing it to that state of tenderness
that is so good in homestyle baked beans.
And remember how I said you could customize it, add flavors you want?
I said I might add some hot sauce.
I'm going to add some hot sauce.
I don't know, maybe a tablespoon or so here.
Just, you know, kick it up a little bit.
Not too much.
All right.
As soon as this comes up to a simmer, the lid's going on
and it's going to be going in the oven.
All right.
Our beans have been in the oven baking for an hour.
Let's see how they're doing.
Oh, look at that.
Let's give these a stir, see how they're doing.
I think we're doing pretty good on the liquid.
I think I'll add just a little bit.
I don't know, half a cup, maybe a cup.
You can just see the beans are getting a little exposed when we stir them here.
And if you kind of tap these as you're stirring,
you can almost feel the beans tapping back.
They're not tender enough yet.
Still have a little bit to go. A couple more hours at least.
But look at those.
So I'm going to add probably about three quarters
of a cup of that vegetable stock that I've warmed up here.
You can just warm it up in the microwave.
So it's not ice cold.
Just helps not bring the temperature way down on this.
But let's get our lid back on, get this back in the oven
and we'll check it again in another hour.
Okay.
It has been 2 hours now that our beans have been baking.
Let's take a look.
Ah, nice.
Just love those big pieces of bacon in there.
Beans are looking good and I can feel when I do this,
they're still not tender enough, but they're not quite as
tappy as they were before.
There's not quite as much sound coming back from them.
So they are starting to soften.
What you can do is take one go up against the side of the thing and press it
and you'll just see they are starting to smash.
But they definitely need more time.
I think they need at least one more hour, maybe even more.
Remember, beans are really unpredictable.
You can't always just predict it's going to be 2 hours or 3 hours or 4 hours
when you're doing this method.
Definitely want to add some more liquid here.
I'm going to put another three quarters of a cup of our vegetable stock,
or vegetable
broth, whatever you want to call it.
Just give it a quick little stir.
Let those beans settle in there and we'll get our lid on and
get these back in the oven.
And we'll come back and check those
in another hour.
Three hours down. Let's check our beans and see how they're doing.
That is looking good.
Every time we open this, these look even better.
Really taking on that baked bean color now.
Look at that.
Feeling a lot softer.
You just push up against the side there.
I'm not sure. Actually going to take
a little taste here and see how these are.
Let's see how tender they are.
Those are pretty good.
I don't think they need a full hour beyond this.
I think maybe 30 more minutes. So that's what we'll do.
But I want to add a little bit more of my vegetable broth.
This is about half a cup this time.
I'll just stir that in.
One of the nice things
about doing this in the oven because you're not using direct heat
is you're not getting any beans or any of that
liquidy sauce stuff burned on the bottom.
The heat is all encompassing in the Dutch oven here, so it just surrounds
these beans rather than scorching them on the bottom over a direct flame.
Now you can definitely cook these on the stove over a low flame.
People do that all the time.
You can cook them in a slow cooker, in a pressure cooker, an instant pot,
something like that.
But I just liked something about doing this sort of the old traditional way
in a cast iron Dutch oven in the oven, actually baking them.
It’s just a fun way to do it
and you get terrific flavor. And these are looking really good.
And I just want to also get a quick taste right now for salt and pepper.
Let's just see if we need to add anything.
To me that tastes just right, spot on.
It doesn't need any more salt, any more pepper.
It's just got a really nice flavor to it.
So let's get the lid back on and give it 30 more minutes.
All right.
Three and a half hours later, I think we are done.
Let's go ahead and have a look.
Oh, yes, look at that.
And I can feel just by moving the spoon
through here that these are tender.
Oh, now, as I mentioned, if you wanted to customize these,
let's say when you put them in the oven, when you're mixing things together before
that, you could add barbecue sauce, turn these into some barbecue baked beans.
There's so many things you can do with this.
It's like the perfect base for you to add anything you want.
It is just an amazing recipe and a simple one.
All eight I’m going to let this cool for maybe 5 minutes just sitting here
and then I'm going to dish some up so we can have a taste.
So I've transferred a good amount of beans into this serving dish.
Now let's get some in a bowl and have a taste.
See if I can do this without making a mess.
If there is a mess,
it will be a tasty mess.
Love those big pieces of bacon in there, basically just like pork and beans.
But we got bacon.
And as I mentioned, this was bacon I made. It was homemade bacon.
I'll put a link in the video description to that video.
And also up in the corner of this video. It was some good bacon.
I’ve still got some frozen and vacuum sealed.
All right.
I'm going in.
Let's get some beans and some of that bacon in there,
too. A nice mix of everything.
Cheers.
Yeah, you can buy a can of beans and they're going to taste good.
But let me tell you, you make it yourself.
There's something
ultra satisfying about doing that, especially when they turn out like this.
The key here is letting the beans have the time to tenderize.
You can take them out earlier, but they're just not going to be tender.
You've got to let the beans tell you when it's done.
This could have taken me another hour. For whatever reason,
these beans were three and a half hour beans.
I've made five hour beans before.
They tasted great just like these.