These spicy Molasses Baked Beans are a great addition to a buffet, backyard BBQ, or any meal for that matter!
Our family has a long, long tradition with baked beans. When we were kids we had Boston Baked Beans every Saturday night in the winter. Our traditional recipe is more of a tomato, brown sugar, mustard base.
This recipe comes from Princess, my sister (long story but it's a good one!) . She has a great eye for recipes... she can really pick the ones that are a notch above average. And I am very lucky she is happy to share them with me!
I had forgotten about this recipe until I was scouring my recipe books for a certain recipe. My handwritten notes of 'Excellent!' and 5 squiggly star marks caught my eye and I paused and wondered why I hadn't made them for so long.
Well, I rectified that this snowy, cold Saturday night in the winter! Just like old times!
This recipe makes a lot - at least 12 servings so it is great to feed a crowd. If you are not serving a crowd you can freeze extra portions to have on hand for another day. They reheat beautifully!
I did a hybrid approach - I precooked my navy beans in my pressure cooker and then baked the beans in the sauce in my oven for 3 hours. I will write out the instructions for all oven or all slow cooker as well.
I serve them with this Tangy Pork Tenderloin- a perfect match!
Princess's Molasses Baked Beans
Ingredients
- 1 lb dry navy beans
- 1 medium yellow onion diced
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon prepared mustard add more if you want more tang
- 3 Tbsps molasses
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- ½ cup ketchup
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ lb bacon diced
Instructions
Slow Cooker Method
- Cover beans in a large sauce pan with about 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil and cook 30 minutes. Drain the water off. Put ½ the bacon and onion in the bottom of the slow cooker. Mix all the other ingredients (except beans, bacon and onion) well. Mix beans and sauce together and pour into the slow cooker. Top with the remaining half of the bacon and onion. Cover beans with hot water (just). Cook, covered, on low 4 hours. Remove 1 cup of beans and mash them. Stir them back in to the beans. Cook, covered, another 3-4 hours on low. Make sure the beans are always just covered with water.
Oven Method
- Follow slow cooker method except substitute a dutch oven for the slow cooker. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cook beans covered for about 7 hours. Check hourly and add water if necessary so beans are always just covered with liquid. 1 hour before serving remove 1 cup of beans, mash them and stir them back into the rest of the beans to thicken the sauce.
Pressure Cooker/Oven Method
- Cook navy beans in your pressure cooker according to your manufacturer's instructions. Mine is to add 6 cups of water for 2 cups of dry beans. Add 6 tablespoon oil to the water to reduce foaming. Cook on High for 7 minutes and allow slow, natural release. Follow the oven method above except you will only need to cook about 3 hours at 350 degrees. Check hourly if you need to add water.
Princess
For a change up I switch out the bacon for a large precooked hot Italian sausage link. I grind it in the food processor and layer it in with the onions. Goes over well at BBQs.
thewineloverskitchen
Oh that sounds yummy too!