Cowboy Beans are baked beans… but extra. Yes, there are beans (four kinds!) and yes, there’s the syrupy sweet sauce to surround them, but there’s also two kinds of meat and a whole lot of baked in flavor. They’re delicious. And they’re hearty enough that they’re not for the faint of heart. You can make a meal out of these!
What Ingredients are in Cowboy Baked Beans?
These are hearty and so they call for a hearty ingredients list. You’ll need:
- Bacon.
- Yellow onion and garlic.
- Ground beef.
- Chili powder.
- A lot of beans: two cans pork and beans, and one each of cannellini, kidney, and pinto
- Barbecue sauce. (Whatever your favorite is!)
- Ketchup.
- Mustard.
- Brown sugar.
- Worcestershire sauce.
How Do You Make Cowboy Baked Beans?
It’s simple; the oven does most of the work for you!
You’re going to cook down some chopped bacon in a large pot — a Dutch oven is perfect — and then remove the bacon before you add in the onion to soften up. Once that happens, you can brown the ground beef and add the garlic, and then stir in allllll those beans, along with the ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. That’s all the stovetop work you need to do.
Transfer the whole pot to a 350 degree oven and by the time you come back in forty-five minutes, it will have cooked down into caramelized, sweet, saucy glory. This is the perfect pot of beans for any cookout, potluck, or you know, circling the wagons.
Cowboy Beans
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb bacon, chopped
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb lean ground beef
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 (15 oz each) cans pork and beans, undrained
- 1 (15 oz) can cannellini beans, drained
- 1 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained
- 1 (15 oz) can pinto beans, drained
- 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.
- Leave bacon grease in the pot and add the onion, cooking until nearly soft, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in garlic and ground beef and brown ground beef until cooked through, breaking it apart as it cooks. Drain any excess grease.
- Add bacon back to the pot, along with the chili powder, pork and beans, pinto beans, cannellini beans, kidney beans, barbecue sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Transfer to oven and bake until sauce has reduced and caramelized, 45 minutes.
Recipe adapted from The Recipe Critic.