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. 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.
I was born in the Panama CZ to wonderful parents. My dad was stationed there (he served in the Army for 20 years). Because of this, he always called me his “Little Panahoochee”. “I am not a Panahoochee, I HAVE MY CITIZENSHIP” *stamps foot! Was ALWAYS my response – he loved to get a rise out of me – and it always worked! He passed almost 4 years ago. Thanks for sharing your delicious recipe, and allowing me to reminisce. Aren’t memeories wonderful?!!
Mimi: We had an aunt who taught in the PCZ for 25 years…approximately what were the years you were there?
Yesterday I posted that my Grandmother used the same mashed potato recipe and how much your stories reminded me of my childhood. I am even more amazed now that I see these baked beans. My Mama always made them with the hamburger, onion and the bacon and everyone loved them. It is something that I still do today. While I am blessed to still have my Grandmother at 92, I lost my precious mother at 52. Because she is no longer here, each recipe brings up many special memories. Everyone I met as an adult just calls me “Ronda”, but people from my childhood and family call me “Ronda Faye”. In high school I had a teacher that decided to call me Rhoda…..so it stuck and most of my high school friends did too. And when I call or see my Daddy…it is always “Hey Little Girl”. Thanks for all you wonderful posts.
I was my Dad’s shadow and went everywhere with him. As a small child I was his Baby Girl…his Little Pal and as a teen I became his Ramblingirl. He and I had some wonderful adventures and made some very special memories together fishing, hunting, camping and treasure hunting. With his own hands he built a boat-house for us to spend lazy days on the river …it’s name was “Little Pal” … and the fastest boat on the bay … who’s name was “Ramblingirl”. We spent many wonderful days on both. He passed away when I was a young woman but to this day, I’m still known as Ramblingirl to my friends and to those who read my fan-fiction stories on asjfanfiction.wetpaint.com.
He made his baked beans the same as the recipe except for the addition of the ground beef. I’m going to try it that way at our next BBQ.
recipe looks fantastic, it’s on my list of things to fix w/bbq this summer! My Grandpa always called me Deedee, when I asked him why, he told me I looked like a Deedee 🙂 I’m sure it had something to do with my middle name since it’s Denise. At work nicknames are very common. I have a co-worker that nicknames everyone in the office, she calls me SheShe. Now most people at the department refer to me by that name :). I very rarely answer to the name Sheila at work since given the nickname and since there is another Shiela (note spelling) there. My son Clayton, is called Clay, babe, sweetie, boogerbutt (a lot), but his favorite is sunshine. He himself decided that because of me singing to him at bedtime, you guessed it, “You are my Sunshine”.
I was born month premature, so I weighed about 5 lbs. My father could hold me cupped in one hand, so I was “Peanut”.
And I forgot to mention this…this recipe was such a delight for me to find! My prayer mom for my class brought this to me twice when my husband, now passed away, was very ill. My family loved this recipe and my sweet tooth was delighted 🙂 Absolutely cannot wait to make this for my family! Thank you so much!
My dad always called me Sugar because I loved candy! I still have such a ridiculous sweet tooth that it is almost embarrassing! My Father passed away when my youngest daughter was 2 but when she was 13 and ready to pick a new Christmas stocking, she picked one that said Sugar on the top and I teared up because I knew my dad would love that! We have a program at work that tracks our leads for the day and it is called, you guessed it, Sugar! Love my nickname that is so very special to my daddy and me!