Easy Stovetop Baked Beans

Canned beans make party-worthy baked beans on the stovetop.

As an early experimental cook, I decided to make baked beans from scratch, a project that entails soaking dry beans overnight and then cooking them in a sweet, sticky broth for six to eight hours.

As good as they were (and they were really good!), I don’t want to turn on the oven for eight hours and hang around to stir them every once in a while.

That’s what makes this stovetop recipe using canned beans so appealing. It tastes like they were made completely from scratch, but they are ready in forty minutes or less with very little hands-on time.

Best Beans for Baked Beans

Navy beans are the bean of choice for New England-style baked beans. They are small and thus soak up a lot of sweet molasses goodness that is the hallmark of baked beans. You could also use Great Northern beans or another variety of small beans if you can’t find them, but the small pea beans (navy beans) are the most authentic for Boston-style baked beans.

Make Ahead: Storing and Freezing

Once cooked, stovetop beans will keep for at least four days in the fridge. Be sure to tuck them away, well-covered with a lid, within two hours of cooking.

They can be frozen for up to six months, but the texture can become a little mushy. If you know ahead of time you will freeze the beans, reduce the cooking time by about 10 minutes so the beans are not too soft. Let them cool on the counter and then chill thoroughly in the fridge before transferring to freezer-safe containers and freezing. Defrost in the refrigerator before reheating.

Method

Cook the bacon:

In a large soup pot over medium heat, cook the bacon, turning often, for 5 minutes, or until browned. Pour off and discard about half the excess fat. Set aside about 1/4 cup bacon for garnish.

Cook the beans:

Add the onion half, drained beans, tomato sauce, molasses, brown sugar, mustard powder, bay leaf, salt, and water to the pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Cover the pot and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the sauce is thick. If your sauce doesn’t seem to be thickening to your liking, remove the lid for the final 5 minutes of cooking. Remove the onion half and bay leaf.

To serve:

Serve the beans from the pot, or transfer them to a bowl, and sprinkle the reserved bacon on top.

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Watch how to make it

Easy Stovetop Baked Beans

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1/2 pound thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide strips
2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
1/2 peeled onion, stem intact
4 (15-ounce) cans navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
3 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Soak beans in a big bowl of water for 8 – 24 hrs, then drain.
Skim foam – Place beans in a large pot of water over high heat. Bring to a simmer, then skim off foam.
Simmer Reduce heat so it's simmering gently (medium or medium low). Partially cover with lid (leaving a crack for steam to escape), then cook for 1 – 1.5 hrs until just tender. (Start checking at 45 min). Beans should be still slightly firm on inside (they're cooked more in the sauce). Drain, use per recipe.
Mix – Place all Baked Beans ingredients in a pot (except beans) and stir, then add beans.
Simmer – Bring to a simmer, then lower heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes, without the lid. Stir every now and then so the beans don't catch on the bottom of the pot.
Mix cornflour with water. Pour into pot while stirring, then cook for 2 minutes until sauce thickens – it will thicken quickly. (Note 3)
Check for salt: Taste and add more salt if needed.
Serve it the traditional way – piled over hot buttered toast. Or ladle into bowls, eat with a spoon and dunk in hot crusty bread! Popular breads – simple crusty Artisan bread, Irish Soda Bread (No yeast) and No Yeast Sandwich Bread

Beans – navy beans / haricot beans (same thing) are used by Heinz. Smaller than Cannellini beans. But any beans will work just fine here, small to medium (eg cannellini, butter beans, Great Northern, baby lima.
Australia – Haricot/navy beans are sold at some fresh produce stores (like Harris Farms) and also help-yourself health food places like Scoop (very good value too!). Coloured beans will also work just fine, it just won’t look like Heinz.
Dried vs canned – dried gives better flavour, see in post for commentary. Dried beans triple in volume so use lots of water when soaking. Soak for minimum 4 hrs (safest to soak for even, faster cooking). 1 cup dried beans = 2 3/4 cups cooked. 1 can beans drained = 1 3/4 cups beans, so 3 cans = 5 1/4 cups beans. So 2 cups dried beans = 5 1/2 cups = approximately 3 cans.
Chicken stock gives the sauce a better flavour because it has more complex flavours than vegetable stock because it’s made from meat. It doesn’t make this dish taste “chicken-like” or meaty once cooked. However, vegetable stock does work fine but for best results, I recommend using homemade vegetable stock (it’s the easiest of all stocks to make, and really worth doing homemade).
Tomato Sauce – If you’re in the US or Canada, don’t use what you call “tomato sauce”, use ketchup (Aussie/British Tomato Sauce is a type of ketchup, that’s what this recipe needs).
Sauce thickness – The beans should be relatively thick so it can be piled onto bread without the sauce running all over the plate. If too runny, just keep it on the stove for a couple more minutes so the liquid reduces – the sauce reduces fairly quickly towards the end / when you take it off the stove.
Storage – fridge for up to 5 days (I’m still making my way through the batch you see in the photos!), freezer for 3 months. (Note: if the sauce thins out after freezing, just reheat it with some more cornflour/water slurry. It should be fine, that’s a “just in case” tip – sauces thickened with cornflour as opposed to flour sometimes lose a bit of thickening power after freezing).
Nutrition per serving, assuming 8 servings.

476 Calories
12g Fat
67g Carbs
28g Protein

Hi, I'm Amelia

I believe you can make great food with everyday ingredients even if you’re short on time and cost conscious. You just need to cook clever and get creative!

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Easy Stovetop Baked Beans

Best Beans for Baked Beans

Make Ahead: Storing and Freezing

Method

Cook the bacon:

Cook the beans:

To serve:

Watch how to make it

Easy Stovetop Baked Beans

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Hi, I'm Amelia

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