Prairie Baked Beans Recipe

by AllTheDaysSwift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada

May 2022 578 Views 1 Likes

This was built using trial and error starting from some pointers from my father 30 years ago(I've always loved cooking) I have never written it out before and it is always evolving so bare with me.

Ingredients

As I am Canadian this will be a mish-mash of metric and imperial.
The ingredients are less important then the preparation of the beans so other then the beans themselves it's all to taste.

1 kg of navy beans
1-2 packages of bacon or 1-2 lbs of ham
1 large onion red or white as preferred
2-3 large tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1-2 bay leaves
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vinegar (optional for tangy)
1 tbps of mustard powder
1 tbps ground black pepper (fresh is better)
1 tps salt
pinch of baking soda
Water

Directions

Rinse the beans and pick out any debris or weird looking beans. I use a large strainer for this.

Soak the beans overnight in a large pot, make sure the there is enough water that the beans will stay covered.

I recommend smoking the bacon if you have a smoker but frying it works just fine

After soaking beans add water if they are not still covered, add the bay leaves, baking soda and eyeball halfish of the vinegar. With the lid on bring to a light boil for 1- 1.5 hours.

While beans are boiling dice the onion, tomatoes and bacon/ham. Crush/mince/press the garlic.

After boiling pour of water until beans are just barely submerged, and save the water for now.

Preheat over to 300F

Add everything except the sugar and molasses to the beans and gently turn them together a couple times.

Bake with a lid for 2 hours then add the sugar and molasses. These go last because adding the sugar drastically slows down the softening of the beans. Bake for another 2 hours or until beans have reach your desired texture. During both steps of baking stir two or three times.

If during the baking the beans are drying out add some of the saved bean water

I like to serve with thick slices of fresh bread slathered in butter. (will add bread recipe if asked)

Notes

If you are going for presentation and want it to look cool/nice/whatever, remove the lid for the last 1/2 hour of the bake time and weave bacon across the top and sprinkle with fresh chives. Switch to broil for the last 15 minutes.

These can be done on a stove top also, you just need to stir more often and use a low/medium heat.

Any other ideas to continue evolving this recipe I'd be glad to hear them.
The batch that I am making while writing this will have a couple yellow bell peppers added.

Number of servings is a strange category to need to fill out, so it is about 5-6 lbs of culinary goodness.

Prep Time: 8 hours
Cook Time: 6 hours
Total Time: 14 hours
Number of Servings: 8
Style: Canadian

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