Baked beans are slow-roasted in a sweet and savory sauce and can be made with various types of beans. They can be cooked in a pot or slow cooker with tomato-based ingredients and served as a side dish or main course. Classic English dish is baked beans on buttered toast.
The term “baked beans” can refer to a number of bean dishes prepared in a variety of ways. In general, it refers to beans that have been prepared by slow roasting in the oven while surrounded by a sauce that can include sweet ingredients such as maple syrup or brown sugar and savory ingredients such as salted pork or bacon. Baked beans can also be used to describe a way to prepare beans that have already been cooked by cooking them a second time with additional spices such as barbecue sauce or mustard. Even though the beans are described as cooked, there are many recipes that don’t actually cook the beans, but instead simmer them in a slow simmer along with some type of sauce and other ingredients. Once served, baked beans can be cooked on bread, presented as a side dish, or mixed with meat or vegetables as a main course.
Almost any type of bean can be used to make baked beans, but commercially, blue beans are used almost exclusively. When made at home, blue beans, kidney beans, and even black beans can be used. Some recipes rely on extracting the starches and flavors from dried beans to give flavor to the sauce that develops during cooking, although there are many recipes that simply dress canned or previously prepared beans.
One of the more common recipes for baked beans involves soaking dried navy beans in water overnight so they slowly soften. Once soft, the beans are placed in a thick-walled pot, Dutch oven, or special bean pot. Onions are pan-fried with diced salted pork, thick-cut bacon, or ham hock. The fried ingredients are then added to the beans along with some water, brown sugar, garlic and mustard, after which it is cooked in the oven for several hours until the beans are very soft and the water has reduced to a thick, sweet sauce.
Other types of baked beans use a similar cooking method but, instead of using water, some type of tomato-based ingredient is added to make the sauce. This can be tomato sauce, tomato juice, ketchup or barbecue sauce, especially when the beans will be cooked on a grill. Beans can be cooked in a slow cooker or on a stovetop over the course of several hours when done this way. In these cases, the beans tend to have less overall sweetness, and the sauce they’re in can be much thinner, sometimes appearing like soup.
Depending on how they are prepared, baked beans may be served in a bowl with some mustard and eaten as a meal on their own. It’s also not uncommon to mix meat such as ground beef into the beans. As a side dish, beans can be served alongside barbecued meats or hot dogs. A classic English dish is made with spoonfuls of baked beans on buttered toast.
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