Slow Cooker Baked Beans

I've tried a few different recipes for baked beans in the past before coming across this recipe for Slow Cooker Baked Beans. The other recipes I tried were all disappointing - mainly, they had no flavor. Another gripe that I had - so many traditional recipes for baked beans go in the oven. Sure, they are baked beans, and that's fine and all, but baked beans are almost always made in the summer, the absolute last time when you want to run the oven for several hours.

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Two years ago I looked for a recipe that went in a slow cooker instead of the oven, to make it friendlier for summer cooking. Since it went into a slow cooker, it didn't make sense to start with precooked cans of beans (another thing that irked me - why cook something precooked for 2-3 hours?!), so I tried to find one that took dried.

Dear reader, I finally found a good recipe from Tried and Tasty. It used dried beans, in a slow cooker. Still, I am a lazy cook most days these days, so I've simplified it. The original recipe has you soak the beans overnight before cooking them; I don't, in favor of cooking the beans a little longer. (My slow cooker cooks beans well even without soaking, so soak yours in advance if you're concerned that yours won't.) The recipe takes bacon, which if I use, I make a point to cook some for breakfast a few days in advance and make extra. Original preparation has you cook onion and celery in the bacon grease before making the beans; this is definitely tasty, but I now eschew this extra preparation in favor of tossing all the ingredients into the slow cooker and letting it cook without any extra intervention. I've also cut the recipe in half, which still yields 10 servings.

These beans taste mostly of... baked beans, a nicely classic flavor. Too often previous recipes have promised flavors that they don't provide or that are too subtle. These baked beans are pretty balanced but tend toward sweet, so I may cut back on the brown sugar when I make it next. I can't promise I won't tinker with it, but I am pretty satisfied with it and have made it several times as it is.

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Slow Cooker Baked Beans

This recipe for Slow Cooker Baked Beans is sweet and flavorful, and easy to make. 

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time11 hours hrs

Total Time11 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Servings: 10

Author: Leona Konkel

Ingredients

• 3 slices bacon
• ½ cup celery minced
• ½ cup onion minced
• ½ cup ketchup
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard ground
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pound dried navy/white beans (soak overnight, then drain, if desired)
• 5 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt plus more to taste
• 1 teaspoon vinegar

Instructions

• Cook bacon according to package.
• If desired, fry celery and onion in bacon grease. Crumble bacon and place in a 4-to-6 quart slow cooker. Add celery, onion, ketchup, brown sugar, molasses, honey, dry mustard, garlic powder, black pepper, beans, and water, and stir briefly to combine. Cook on low for 11-12 hours, or on high for 6+ hours. Stir in salt and vinegar. Stir beans until creamy; they will thicken as you stir and as they cool.

Notes

Adapted from Tried and Tasty