Three Beans Baked for Recipe Friday
Last Sunday we had an awesome picnic at church, which was coupled with an opportunity to sign up for a group service project at one of our local homeless and food shelters. Since it’s a Lutheran church it was, of course, a potluck picnic. I know when going to a potluck that I should plan on being able to try a bunch of different things brought by everyone else, but I’m not very good at that kind of surprise. I like to bring something to a potluck that I know will be sufficient for my dinner even if I don’t find anything else there that I like. (That never really happens, mind you, but I’m always afraid it will.)
For this particular potluck I decided to bring baked beans, but I didn’t want them to be just ordinary baked beans. This is the recipe I came up with, and based on how quickly they disappeared they were a definite hit and I’ll be making them again.
Three Beans Baked
Ingredients:
1 28 oz can Bush’s Honey Baked Beans
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can pinto beans
3 slices pre-cooked bacon
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup ketchup
1-2 tsps Aardvark Habanero hot sauce
Directions:
Pour Bush’s baked beans into a 9 inch square baking dish. Rinse black beans and pinto beans, and add to baked beans, stirring to combine. Cut bacon into small pieces and add to beans. Add brown sugar, ketchup, and hot sauce. Stir to combine.
Bake uncovered for 40 minutes at 350° oven. Serve hot.
To transport to a picnic, cover with aluminum foil (heavy-duty or double thickness). Wrap in a dish towel and place in a cloth carrying bag.
Note about bacon: We buy Hormel pre-cooked bacon from Costco, the kind you can microwave. This is what I used and it works better than uncooked bacon because you don’t have to worry about it being done enough in the beans. You could also pre-cook regular bacon yourself.
Note about hot sauce: Aardvark is a local Portland company, but the link above will take you to a web site where you can buy it online. We actually just got a bottle of this hot sauce given to us by the grocery clerk at our local Whole Foods as a sample. I suppose any Habanero or other hot sauce would work just as well (but don’t tell the Aardvark I said that).
Share this:
I know it’s heresy to ask this, but if you wanted to make vegetarian Boston baked beans (i.e., no salt pork), what could you substitute? I tend to use barbecue sauce in soups and stews to get the smoky flavor without the pork. Or organic liquid smoke. Any suggestions?
I would follow this recipe but use the vegetarian Bush’s Baked Beans instead of the Honey, and leave out the bacon. The Aardvark sauce will give it a kind of smokiness and spice that will more than make up for the lack of bacon. Peace, Linda
It sounds wonderful, Linda! I like how you come up with your own recipes . .even to take places! And I won’t tell the Aardvark. 🙂 God bless you and yours this weekend!
Deb, It can be kind of risky to take an untried recipe to a picnic like this, but as long as it’s something I’m pretty sure of I find it’s worth the risk. 🙂 And thanks for keeping the secret! We are off to a wedding this weekend and looking forward to the celebration. Peace, Linda