Cowboy Beans

These cowboy beans make for a hearty dinner that any hungry cowboy or cowgirl would love. Loaded with beef and beans in a sweet and savory sauce, it's hard to go wrong here. Serve these at your next summer barbecue or family dinner.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 10

Servings

Calories 432kcal

Author Karly Campbell

Ingredients

1 pound thick sliced bacon
1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion diced
1 small jalapeno minced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cracked pepper
45 ounces canned baked beans see notes
15 ounces canned pork and beans
¼ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Dice the bacon into bite-sized pieces and place in a 4-6 quart dutch oven over medium heat. Fry the bacon until crisp, stirring often, and remove from the pan with a slotted spoon.
Drain off about half of the bacon grease and then add the beef to the pot. Brown the beef in the bacon grease, crumbling the meat up as it cooks.
Once the beef is about halfway cooked through, add the onion, jalapeno, and garlic and continue cooking until the beef is cooked through.
Drain any excess grease from the pot.
Add half of the bacon to the pot with the beef and sprinkle on the chili powder, salt, and pepper. Stir to coat in the seasonings.
Add the canned beans, ketchup, barbecue sauce, brown sugar, mustard, worcestershire sauce, and vinegar to the pot and stir well to combine.
Sprinkle the remaining bacon over the top and place in the oven. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes.
Serve hot.

Video

Notes

Spice: This recipe isn’t very spicy as written, but you can keep it more mild by removing the seeds and membranes from the jalapeno or leaving it out entirely. For more spice, add more jalapeno.

Canned Beans: We like to use a variety of canned baked beans and usually grab 2 20-ish ounce cans of different varieties and just mix and match. Anywhere between 40 to 50 ounces of beans will be perfect for this amount of seasoning/sauce.

Our preferred beans are Bush’s Grilling Beans, but any variety you love will work. Do not drain off the sauce. We use pork and beans that are in a tomato sauce. Do not drain the sauce.

BBQ Sauce: Any variety of barbecue sauce is fine. We usually go for a thick, sweet sauce, like Sweet Baby Ray’s or our homemade bourbon BBQ sauce.

Sweetness: Before transferring the beans to the oven, taste and add additional brown sugar if you like sweeter beans.

Nutrition