Baked Beans With Sweet Pickle Juice

Submitted by Rainbabe

"Generally, there isn’t a lot of difference between most baked bean recipes. They usually all have brown sugar, molasses, mustard, onions and some sort of pork product: salt pork, or bacon. I found a recipe in one of my Saveur magazines last year that sounded a little different(http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Sandys-Baked-Beans). The chef added juice from a sweet pickle jar…interesting. This is my version. I recently inherited two 2-quart old-fashioned bean pots. Before inheriting the pots I would put some pork and beans, brown sugar, molasses, onions and bacon in a crock pot and let them cook all day trying to achieve the baked bean consistency. They were okay that way, but the slices of bacon never got to be crisp, and the onions were just sort of limp and anemic. With a bean pot, the beans cook in the oven and the bacon gets brown and crisp, and the onions turn caramel brown…so much better! Originally published on my blog."

 

• Ready In: 15hrs
• Ingredients: 8
• Serves: 16

ingredients

• 4 (15 ounce) cans pork and beans
• 1 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
• 1 1⁄2 cups ketchup
• 3⁄4 cup yellow mustard
• 3⁄4 cup molasses
• 1⁄2 cup sweet pickle juice
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 8 slices bacon, sliced crosswise into 1/4 inch slices

directions

1. Heat the oven to 250°. Put the pork and beans, brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, molasses, and pickle juice in a large bowl and mix well (if making half the recipe this can be done right in your 2-quart bean pot). Divide mixture between two 2-quart bean pots, or put it all in one 4-quart bean pot.
2. Top the bean mixture with the chopped onion and the bacon. Bake, uncovered, until the bacon is crisp and the beans are hot and bubbling, about 4 hours. Increase the temperature of the oven to 350° and bake for another hour. Remove the pots from the oven and allow the beans to cool slightly. Stir the onions and bacon into the beans before serving.