Hearty Southern Baked Beans With Ground Beef
This hearty Baked Beans with Ground Beef takes basic canned beans and turns them into a thick, smoky beef casserole! Just stir in seasoned hamburger meat, a quick homemade barbecue glaze, and top the whole thing with crispy bacon. With just 15 minutes of hands-on prep before going into the oven, you’ll get a rich, comforting main dish or hearty side that’s completely ready in an hour!
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Hearty Southern Baked Beans With Ground Beef
- Ready In: 60 minutes
- Serves: 9 cups
- Main Ingredients: Baked beans, Navy beans (or bean of your choice), Ground beef, Small onion, Barbecue sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Yellow mustard, Salt, Black pepper, Turkey bacon
- Why You'll Love It: You’ll love this recipe because it takes a standard can of cookout beans and turns it into a rich, deeply satisfying dish hearty enough to stand on its own as a main meal. By stirring savory ground beef into a quick, punchy barbecue glaze, you get the perfect balance of smoky sweetness and savory depth with just fifteen minutes of actual effort.
Baked Beans That Taste Like The Main Meal
In the South, we love to add our own spin to traditional recipes (I mean, just look at my zucchini stuffed boats!). Today, we’re talking about baked beans. Now, if you head to the UK, you’ll regularly get a small side serving of baked beans with breakfast. But this easy recipe for Southern baked beans with ground beef is a delicious main dish around here.
It’s one of the easiest Southern meals to make, as all you have to do is stir the ingredients together in a bowl. You can use a skillet or a 9×13 pan if you like. So, what ingredients do we combine to make baked beans? Besides the baked beans and ground beef, we’ve got navy beans, onion, and flavorful seasonings like barbecue sauce, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. This gives the baked beans a really delicious barbecue flavor that will have you wanting seconds!
Once you mix the ingredients, pop them into a baking dish, add a layer of bacon strips, and bake! It will be ready in under an hour. Now, I’ve included some serving suggestions below, but seeing as this is a Southern baked beans recipe, you can’t go wrong with a serving of homemade cornbread.
Alright, who’s ready to get baking and make this baked beans and beef casserole? I know I am!
Ingredients You’ll Need For This Baked Beans Recipe
- Baked beans
- Navy beans (or bean of your choice)
- Ground beef
- Small onion
- Barbecue sauce
- Worcestershire sauce
- Yellow mustard
- Salt
- Black pepper
- Turkey bacon
Expert Tips from My Kitchen
- Cook the Beef Ahead: I make this for my family all the time, and my favorite time-saving tip is to keep pre-cooked, drained ground beef in the freezer. When I need to whip this up for an unexpected crowd, I can just thaw the meat and stir everything together in under five minutes!
- Don’t Drain the Liquid: It might be tempting to pour off the liquid from the canned navy beans, but you want to leave it in. That starch helps bind the ground beef mixture together, ensuring the sauce thickens up into a rich glaze rather than drying out in the preheated oven.
- Give It Time to Sit: When the timer goes off, the sauce might still look a little loose at the surface. Don’t panic and leave it in the oven to dry out; the sauce continues to thicken up significantly as it cools down to room temperature. Give it about ten minutes on the counter before serving.
- Jazz It Up For Company: Tossing in a diced green bell pepper or a red bell pepper with the onions adds a wonderful color and crunch, while a cup of brown sugar or a splash of apple cider vinegar can push the sweet-and-tangy profile even further!
“Thanks for the delicious supper!”
“I made this tonight with hot water cornbread and hub loved it and asked me to fix it again soon. Thanks for our delicious supper!”
How to Make Baked Beans With Ground Beef
1. Prep the Base
Preheat your oven to 350°F and spray a standard 9×13 baking dish or a large cast-iron skillet with nonstick cooking spray. If you haven’t already, brown your pound of ground beef over medium-high heat in a large skillet, draining away all the excess grease.
2. Mix the Ingredients
In a large bowl, combine your undrained baked beans, undrained navy beans, and the cooked beef. Toss in your finely chopped onion, followed by the cup of BBQ sauce, Worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, salt, and black pepper.
3. Stir Well
Give the whole mixture a good stir until the seasonings are completely incorporated and the beef is distributed evenly throughout the beans.
4. Top With Bacon
Pour the mixture into your prepared casserole dish. Take your slices of bacon and lay them flat across the top of the beans. As it bakes, the bacon fat will melt down into the casserole, infusing everything with a rich, smoky depth.
5. Bake
Place the dish uncovered into the oven and bake for 45 to 60 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when the edges are bubbling fiercely, the center is set, and the bacon on top is cooked through and crisp. Let it rest for a few minutes before serving it up alongside a hot pan of homemade cornbread or soft, homemade dinner rolls!
Baked Beans With Ground Beef FAQs
Baked beans pair perfectly with classic Southern comfort foods like buttery cornbread, fluffy biscuits, or a cool, crisp coleslaw to balance out the sweetness. If you’re hosting a cookout, they are an incredible side dish for pulled pork, hamburgers, and grilled hot dogs.
You can make baked beans in the crockpot. The only difference is that I’d pre-cook the bacon and chop it up before adding the bacon bits and the remaining ingredients to your crockpot. Cook on low for 4 to 6 hours or on high for 2 to 3 hours.
Yes, you can! If you remove the ground beef, you’ve basically got a delicious baked bean casserole.
While plain beans and beef are naturally gluten-free, store-bought canned beans, barbecue sauces, and Worcestershire sauce often contain hidden wheat or barley thickeners. If you’re cooking for someone with celiac disease, just double-check the labels on your pantry staples to make sure they are explicitly marked gluten-free.
Similar Recipes
Beans are an incredibly versatile ingredient, and you can use them to make other delicious recipes like this 3 Bean Salad With Dressing or these simple Craving Beans!
Let me know what you’re having these baked beans with in the comments below!
Ingredients
- 28 ounce baked beans do not drain
- 30 ounce navy beans (or bean of your choice), do not drain, approximately 2 cans
- 1 pound ground beef cooked and drained
- 1 onion small, chopped
- 1 cup barbecue sauce
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 4 ounces turkey bacon uncooked, 3-4 slices
Instructions
- Prepare your skillet or spray a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
- Stir together all ingredients except for the bacon.
- Spoon into the oven safe prepared skillet or baking dish and top with strips of uncooked bacon. Place in a 350-degree oven for 45-60 minutes.
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Last week, I got a new Chihuahua puppy, I named her “Cookie”, but have called her “Snickle Fritz”, “Spook n Dyke”, and “Sugar Britches”, just to name a few. She loves them all, and gets so excited.
My daddy called me Weiner and when I was about to marry I still remember his asking me, “Is that what you want to do, Weiner?” My nickname came from my cousin Janice who could not say my name and called me Weiner – only she and my daddy called me that. Once when she was about 4 yrs old, her mother said she started yelling from the backyard where she was playing – her mother went running out to see if something was wrong. Janice proudly said to her mother, “I can say Mildred” – apparently she had been practicing – that story has been told many times. My cousin now lives in PA and when we talk by phone or email one another, she still calls me that nearly 70 years later – a very sweet memory.
Oh you do dredge up our memories. I was 6 when my older sister married. My brother in law…til this day & I just turned 60, calls me” Wilbur” (my name is Wilma)
My best friend’s name when I was growing up was Darlene & he…until this day calls her “Sardine”. We spent many summers with their family…(Mom needed a
break from me..LOL) and we were always “Wilbur & Sardine. Mt son-in law ,son & daughter call me Wilbur sometimes. Now my 2 grandsons (almost men) even call me Wilbur.
When my brother, Travis, was a little boy, my Mama called him “COOKIE”. WIth 6 little children there was a lot of work to be done in the kitchen and unless you were old enough to help, you were supposed to be outside or playing somewhere out of the way.
My Mama always told the story that Travis loved her so much that many times he would rather watch her cook than play outside, so he hid under the edge of the table and quietly watched her as she went about her work. That’s how he became her little “COOKIE”.
By the way, Travis is also a great country cook!
Two of my nieces are both named after one of their grandmothers – for their middle name. Amanda is Amanda EDNA and Jamie is Jamie CARMEN. They are fine names but as you might guess…to two little girls they are not quite “modern” to say the least!
The sweet thing is that these two little girls who are now in their 30’s have always called each other by those middle names. No one else can do but they can. So it’s always been EDNA and CARM for those two!
Being born in the piney woods of Louisiana, my cousins and I had quite an assortment of names, most of them given to us by our Grandpa. Let’s see…we had Feller, Dumplin’, Pee Wee, Sissy Poo, Jan Girl, Sue Sue and Teeta Poo to name a few.
My nickname was Me Me or Minner Lou. I am guessing because I was so little (like a minnow) and because my middle name is Louise. If I got into trouble, it was MELISSA LOUISE
While compiling our family cookbook a few years back, I realized that I didn’t even know Siissy Poo’s real name…it’s Karen. I had to call her parents to find out! Most of us grown up cousins still call each other by our nicknames. It’s like our ouwn special code!
Well, my dad called me Tanny. I didn’t think anyone out side the family knew that, but then my best friend referred to me as Aunt Tanny to her grandchildren, and that is what they call me.
My mom, for some reason called me Charlie or Charles–that I have no idea why, and when I got into high school, I begged her to stop because I’m a girl and didn’ t want to be teased about being called by a boy’s name.
My Great Uncle (my mom’s uncle), when I was a very little girl called me his “doll pin.” Again, I have no idea why or where that came from.
My girls all called me Mama most of the time, Mommeee when they were sick, and as they got older Mother when they were perturbed with me.
Now, I’m a grandma, and my 2-year old grandson tried to say Grammie–but it came out Gamis–so now I guess I’m Gamis. I have to admit that is my favorite nickname.