Baked Beans with Ground Beef

5 from 2 votes

This Baked Beans with Ground Beef is easy to make and packed with flavor. The beans are cooked low and slow under bacon with my homemade BBQ seasoning and Hennessy BBQ sauce. Perfect as a main dish or side dish.

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 1 30

Total Time 1 35

Servings

Calories 273kcal

Ingredients

10 oz bacon I use no sugar-added bacon, but any bacon will work.
1.25 cup yellow onion diced
6 cloves garlic minced
1 lb ground beef or ground turkey (I used 7% fat and 15% fat meat and both work)
54 oz cannellini beans I used 4 cartons which were about 13.5 oz each, drained and rinsed, with no salt added
1/3 cup BBQ seasoning click to get the recipe for homemade bbq seasoning
3/4 cup BBQ sauce hickory or Kansas City style work best, but Bourbon BBQ sauce also tastes great, especially if you aren't using Hennessy
3/4 cup chicken broth low sodium
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp Hennessy optional
1/2 tsp sea salt optional, because I used no salt added beans. You can add this at the end to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sauté 3 slices of bacon out of the package, the goal is to get some fat in the pan. Remove the bacon from the pan, crumble it, and set it aside.
In the same pan, add the onions to the bacon drippings and sauté until translucent.
Add the ground beef to the pan and brown.
Turn the heat to medium-low, add the remaining ingredients, and stir to combine.
Transfer the beans and ground meat to a baking dish, I used a 9x12 pan.
Top the beans and meat with the remaining raw bacon - I line the slices up and spread them evenly with the strips.
Bake uncovered in the oven for 1 hr 20 minutes to 1 hr 40 minutes. The sauce will thicken and reduce the longer that it cooks. The bacon will be crisp and look almost burnt in some places.

Notes

You can check on your beans after 1 hour since some ovens cook faster. But, allowing the beans to cook in the sauce and reduce helps the beans to absorb all of the flavors.

Nutrition