Bourbon Baked Beans
My June Cooking Light magazine contained a recipe for Bourbon Baked Beans. Memorial Day was looming and we were headed to a big picnic the Saturday before. I decided I would try them for the picnic. Then I had second thoughts. Would the many children at the picnic hate the less familiar flavors? Should I attempt something new and inflict it upon others before trying it myself? So I took canned beans to the picnic (what? Bush’s does a good job) and made the from scratch beans at home for our own cook out on Monday.
During the cooking process, the Cooking Light recipe and I parted ways. I decided these beans needed a little more bacon and some brown sugar. Then I read some other recipes and saw people using coffee. Later on I decided they needed a little bit of ketchup and mustard and a little more brown sugar. I also decided they needed a little bit of spice…which I am going to leave out here because it overwhelmed the beans a bit.
A word of warning: if you’ve never had baked beans from scratch, you need to adjust your expectations a little bit. The beans will not be as soft as the ones from the can no matter how long you soak them or bake them (unless someone knows something I don’t). They aren’t hard…just firmer. And a tip – these taste even better the next day so don’t be afraid to bake them and then warm them up the next day to serve. Also, it is a long process so unless you don’t have plans to go any where don’t start this.
Bourbon Baked Beans (adapted from Cooking Light Recipe click here to see original)
1 lb dried navy beans
6 slices bacon
1 yellow sweet onion, diced
3 1/2 cups water (then more as you cook)
1/2 brewed coffee
1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff…the pancake stuff is too sweet), divided
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons bourbon, divided
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup yellow mustard
1/4 cup ketchup
1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
Soak beans over night in water.
Drain beans and put aside. Preheat oven to 350*. (You can do all of this in a dutch oven if you have one. I do not.) Cook bacon in large, deep skillet. Remove from pan and crumble. Reserve 2 Tablespoons of the drippings in the pan. Brown the onion in the drippings for 5 minutes or until browned. Add beans, bacon, 1/2 cup coffee, 3 1/2 cups water, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup bourbon, Dijon mustard, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce to pan. Bring to a boil.
Transfer to a large baking pan (I used my big lasagna pan), cover with foil, and bake for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of water, 1/4 cup maple syrup, ketchup, yellow mustard, vinegar, and remaining 2 Tablespoon bourbon. Cover and bake. Check every hour. If it is getting dry, add more water. I cooked mine for a total of 5 hours.
Linking to Rachel’s Mouthwatering Monday.
U can soak the bean overnite with a pinch of baking soda. Wash them again and pressure cook in sufficient water with a pinch of soda for about 35 mins…they will turn out really soft.
MD
The flavours you have used in this sound wonderful! I can just imagine how good they tasted!
I just saw a yummy recipe in the foo.d network, i think it was in the 5 ingr.edient fix show… they had bacon, brown sugar, bourbon and something else – but they looked very, very, very good 🙂
Those look wonderful but I’m lazy and that is way to much work. I’ll stick to Bush’s!
I really like what you guys are usually up too.
This kind of clever work and coverage! Keep up the awesome works guys I’ve included
you guys to blogroll.