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.
My mother tells the story that if I had been a boy she would have named me Richard Condon and called me RC for short. Me personally, I think it was because she loved RC Cola so much and not because it was a family name. I thank the Lord every time I think of that story that I was born a girl:-)
For as long as I can remember I’ve been called Sissy in my family, even friends now call me that! My son has always been called Buddy or Bubba. Buddy by his grandad and Bubba by everyone else! When you’re a 10 pound kid it’s easy to get the nickname Bubba!!
Before I was born my daddy wanted to name me Jodi. My mother said that wasn’t a proper name for a little girl. He said “You can name her whatever you want to, but I’m going to call her Jodi.” My given name is Diana Jo, but everyone (including my mother) has always called me Jodi. He also called me “Possum Blossom” sometimes. My brothers who were born 16 months apart were often called “Pete” and “Re-Pete”.
We Northerners like our nicknames, too. (I’m from Michigan) My maternal grandma’s name was Cecilia, but everyone called her Sally. My uncle John was Jackie or J.T. My mom’s name is Jeanne (but her Mom taught her to spell it Jeannie, oops), but most people in my family call her Bean. My Dad’s name is Richard, but he usually goes by Rich or Ric, he had many nicknames in our family, most of which were given by himself (Robopop, Dirk Savage, Trog). My Brother’s name is John David, but when every one was calling him Baby John when I was two, I shortened it to B.J. and it stuck. Most of the time I just call him Beej. My Dad calls him Trog, Jr. also. ; ) My given name is listed above, but I only get called Jennifer by people I’ve just met or when I’m in trouble. I usually go by Jenn (with two n’s, given by my 3rd grade teacher since there were two Jennifer’s in the class. She was Jennifer and I was Jenn.) My maternal grandparents would go down the list of my Mom’s name, my Aunt’s (her fraternal twin sister, Janice) name and then finally get to mine. So I would be JeannieJaniceJennifer, or just slurred into Jeannnifer. My Dad called me Jenny-furry, Jeffer, or Didilit (not sure where that one came from). My son’s name is Kyle, but ever since he was born I’ve occasionally called him “Bud”. No one else can call him that, but me, and only when it seems appropriate. He’s my 11-year-old Buddy. 😉 My husband’s name is Keith, but I usually call him Keiffer. Nicknames just make you feel loved! 😉
We have a version of these baked beans that my family has made for years. We call them Aunt Joyce’s Baked Beans because Mom got the recipe from, you guessed it, Aunt Joyce! Ours use a combination of baked beans, limas, kidney and pork and beans. When I make them, I use 1/2 ground beef and 1/2 pork sausage and add a bit of cayenne.
I am the 5th of 6 girls. By the time she had me, Mom figured that she deserved to have a daughter named after her. Her name was Gretta Denise, so she named me Denise Ann. She planned on calling me ‘Niecie’ (thank goodness that didn’t stick!), but Denny did. Daddy called me Tom because I was the designated ‘boy’ to do chores like mowing the lawn. I also got called ‘Little Gretta’ by Mom’s co-workers because I looked so much like her, something that I’m very proud of now.
My grandpa has called me Annie ( ann is my middle name) for as long as i remember. I use to hate it but now that Im older I see just how special it is to have a nickname. 🙂
My dad has always called me Luke, Lucy, and Sally! 🙂