The temps are really starting to heat up here in Texas, and you know what that means. It’s time for an outdoor cookout! What dish is a summer cookout favorite? Baked beans, of course!
Last year, my mom gave me a bottle of Stonewall Kitchen Chipotle Maple Grille Sauce. This sauce can be used as a marinade, and a dipping sauce, but the recipe for baked beans on the bottle is what really sounded interesting to me.
The sauce gave the baked beans a really good flavor, but I didn’t like the fact that the sauce has sugar listed as the second ingredient. Solution? Come up with my own naturally sweetened version.
This recipe features the smokey flavor of bacon, and gets a spicy kick from a little chipotle chili powder. I don’t like my baked beans to be overly sweet, just a nice balance of sweet to heat. I used 100% pure maple syrup in this recipe. Sure, it costs a little more than the fake stuff, but it’s so much better for you.
Fun Fact: Did you know that 100% pure maple syrup is an excellent source of the trace mineral manganese, and a good source of zinc? 🙂
What is your favorite summer cookout dish?
Spicy Maple Baked Beans
Ingredients
- 2 slices bacon
- 1 medium red onion , chopped
- 1-1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder (or less depending on heat tolerance)
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
- 1/3 cup 100% pure maple syrup
- 4 1/2 cups cooked navy beans , or 3 (15 oz cans)
- 1 tsp salt or salt to taste
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 300°.
- Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium high heat until crisp. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. Add the onions to the pan and saute for 3 minutes. Add the cumin and chipotle chili powder to the pan and cook, stirring, for one minute.
- Crumble the bacon into small pieces and add back to the pan, as well as the remaining ingredients, stir to combine. Simmer for ten minutes, then pour the mixture into a 2qt. baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 300° for 1 hour.