These baked black beans with smokey bacon are a great side dish for BBQs, potlucks, and other summer get-togethers!
Baked Black Beans
Corporate life, also known as that other life I live outside this blog, is often measured by how long it is until the next company recognized holiday and, for me, the long trek between MLK Day in January to Memorial Day weekend is the equivalent of crossing the Pacific Ocean in a paddle boat.
Are we there yet?
Thankfully, we are almost there and our corporate holiday drought will end with a celebratory long weekend, sunshine (fingers crossed), and a BBQ to welcome the start of summer. There’ll be hot dogs, hamburgers, Lays Original potato chips, ice cold beer, and the most important BBQ side dish of them all, baked beans.
In this case, sweet and smoky baked black beans.
Despite everything I know to be true about dried beans, I can never quite get organized enough to use them in recipes. Let’s face it, cooking with dried beans takes planning and a serious time commitment, both of which I’m not into right now, so I’m happy to use good quality canned beans instead.
Except for a little bit of veggie chopping, this recipe is mostly a dump and stir. It starts on the stove top where all the smoky bacon, onion, garlic, and bell pepper cook together. Apple cider vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, chili powder, and a few other pantry spices make up the sauce. The beans go in and the whole pot goes in the oven where it bubbles and reduces for an hour or so.
Thanks to the black bean short-cut there’s no waiting around for three to four hours for this side-dish deliciousness.
I made a big batch of these wonderful beans and they were even better the next day after all the flavors married together overnight in the fridge. I may or may not have heated some up the next morning and piled them on a tortilla with a fried egg.
It was delicious.
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Baked Black Beans
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
This recipe is adapted from one published online by the New York Times. Instead of using dried navy beans, which need to soak and then cook for several hours, I used canned black beans which shorten the cooking time considerably. The beans cook in a sweet and smoky sauce made with a generous amount of bacon, chili powder, apple cider vinegar, and brown sugar. Serve these beans with all of your favorite BBQ dishes.
Ingredients
- 6 slices thick cut bacon, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 bell pepper, diced
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon ground mustard
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 2 (15-oz) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a dutch oven or large oven-safe pot, cook the bacon over medium heat until it starts to brown. Add the bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Cook the vegetables until they soften about five or so minutes. Add the chili powder, dried oregano, ground mustard, salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Stir it all together and cook another two minutes.
- Add the apple cider vinegar, molasses, and black beans. Stir everything to combine and then add water until it just covers the beans (about a 1/2 cup depending on the size of your pot).
- Transfer the pot, uncovered, to the preheated oven. bake the beans for approximately one hour, or until the sauce has thickened.
- Category: Side Dishes
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Calories: 270
- Sugar: 19.5g
- Sodium: 876.4mg
- Fat: 9g
- Carbohydrates: 38.7g
- Fiber: 8.3g
- Protein: 9.6g
Keywords: baked black beans
Rob says
I used this recipe as a base and did a 20 minutes stovetop version. Rave reviews! I’m always modding recipes but am sure if i actually followed the instructions (subbing something for the molasses) it would be awesome. Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
April Anderson says
Glad you liked it! Thank you for the rating, too 🙂
Deylah says
What do you recommend I use, if I have no molasses on hand?
April Anderson says
You can sub the same amount of maple syrup – or you could try the same amount of honey. I haven’t tried these subs but it will change the flavor – hope that helps.
Beth says
This was absolutely delicious! I only put a dash of chili powder in as I live with heat phobic people. I used about 2/3 a pack of bacon (not thick slice) and drained most of the grease or before gong on to the next step. The final dish was heavenly. I recommend people double the recipe if they are going to make this!
★★★★★
April says
So glad you liked it!
Lonnie says
Really liked this recipe! The blend of flavors is stellar – I’ve served them both warm and cold and they are delicious!
★★★★★
Stephanie says
Using the slow cooker simplifies cooking with dried beans. I like to soak the dried beans anywhere from 12-24 hours to improve digestibility, then drain and cook in slow cooker 8 hours low. Then drain the water, add the rest of the baked bean ingredients and cook low 4-8 hours. You can also take the beans out of the slow cooker and use stovetop, or freeze in batches for future use. It takes some planning ahead but you can soak all day or overnight, cook beans all day or overnight, then have cooked beans ready to go. 1 1/2 cups of beans equals one 15 oz can. Thanks for a great recipe.
Carol says
I am also of the mind to use dried beans as well. I find that the soaking is not so time consuming and flavour is so much better. After making huge batches and having some to put in freezer, as well, I am convinced that it is worth the effort to make the beauty beans from scratch.
Marc says
I was dismayed to find out that I didn’t have any canned pinto beans in my pantry and the ribs were coming out in 75min. This recipe saved our dinner and we really enjoyed it. My only comment is beware of the molasses you use. Ours left a bitter after taste. I’m reasonably sure that our Wholesome’s Organic Molasses was to blame. It’s good for some things, but not the best choice for this recipe.
★★★★
Molly says
These have a really good smoky flavor – thanks for the recipe!
★★★★★
Patty says
Excellent recipe My friends all loved it. Thank you
April says
Thanks so much for letting me know, Patty – your comment made my day 🙂
Vivian | stayaliveandcooking says
This looks like such a delicious side dish! Lately I’ve been eating beans more and more (instead of meat/potatoes/rice/pasta e.g.) and I’m surprised at how versatile they actually are. Great share, will remember this one! 😀