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.
Christy, I love reading your stories about family and friends. This bean recipe has been a favorite of my family and friends for a long time. The only difference is I cook a pound of bacon cut in pieces then I add it to the mix and also a half cup of brown sugar. These are a great hit at church and picnics. As far as nicknames go the one I love the most is Nana ! I love Mama but now when your children have children there is nothing like it in the world. I have 10 children and love them all so very much. My husband and I adopt hurting children and try to give them the love they deserve . Thanks Christy for the joy you bring to me and so many others. God bless you and your family, Verna Corbett and the ark of hope for children.org
Well, funny story. My son-in-law, who is from California, always wondered why every Southern family had a Bubba, and he thought that sounded silly. Now, his daughter, my two year old granddaughter, calls her older brother, his son, my grandson, Bubba, trying to say brother, and it seems to have stuck. Suddenly, my son-in-law thinks it sounds really cute 🙂
My moms Dad-Papa Coyle- nicknamed every single grandchild and great grandchild born into his family until he passed away. my nickname(and the name the entire family still to this DAY call me) is SweetpeaI….And I LOVE that Nickname. my brothers and sisters nicknames was Teddy Bear, Pretty-Girl, Sweet Thang, and Bo-Cephus. One of My cousins(female) got stuck with Hell-Cat. Hahahahaha!!!(in all fairness and papa’s defense – she WAS when she was a child.)
my own grandchildren are mostly called by their given names- but a few of them i have given nicknames to…..Teddy’s nickname isTeeter(and yes Teddy IS his given name), Nicholas is St Nick(as anyone who knows me will know, I got to name HIM!!), and Elijah is called Frodo(My hubby actually nicknamed him-he’s a big Lord Of The Rings fan…Elijah Wood-Frodo…get it?) sigh……. I LOVE Nicknames!!.
Oh I forgot my Kids Nicknames too!! I call my daughter Julie-Bird(but the kids in the family all call her Ju-ji…….My eldest son is Rojo…and my baby boy started out as Snickerdoodole….the I shortened it down to Doo( always reminded me of that movie Coalminers Daughter.) None of the kids ever minded nick-names.
My daughter was also called Jewels for a while, then one day-when she was about 4- she announced that she was changing her name to Renee(off Days Of Our Lives). I didn’t like it- but she refused to answer to anything else so we finally compromised and I began calling her Re-Re…..sometimes I still do- and she’s now almost 32 years old….My- how time flies.
My sister used to call me “JellyBean.” I have nicknames for my kids, “punkin”, “cutie putie” and “coodles.”
This is exactly how my Mama made her baked beans except she also added diced green pepper. She made the best baked beans ever! This is how I make mine.
Owwww- my mama also made this adding green peppers!! Best Beans EVER!!!!
My daddy called me poot when i was a little girl. Guess i passed a lot of gas! The nickname I liked the best was Debran. It is my name, Deborah Ann, run together. My brother always said it that way. One time when we were teenagers a new family moved to town and we got to know them. There were 8 of us growing up together and they soon learned all of us, but they couldn’t figure out who Debran was. They called me Deborah. One day the mama of the family asked me who Debran was that Nathen kept talking about. lol. She was flabbergasted when she found out it was me.
My mum had two nicknames for me….Esmeralda and Teresa. They were not exactly pet names, they were called out whenever she was exasperated with me about something or needed me to do something. Other than those, I was just called by my given name, Joan. However, When she called out my full name, Joan Elaine! I knew I was in deep do do!!
Yeah- that Whole name thing always means you in da ca-ca!!!