Kidney beans, baked beans, and butter beans are blended with ground beef, bacon, and onion in this calico bean casserole. This baked meal is substantial, filling, and quite excellent. A slow cooker may also be used to prepare it.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 35 mins |
| Total Time: | 55 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 1 (9×13-inch) casserole |
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 4 ounces bacon, chopped
- ½ cup chopped onion
- 1 (16 ounce) can baked beans with pork
- 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, undrained
- 1 (15 ounce) can butter beans, undrained
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon dry mustard
- 2 teaspoons white vinegar
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir beef, bacon, and onion in the hot skillet until beef is browned and crumbly, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain fat.
- Combine baked beans with pork, kidney beans, and butter beans in a large bowl. Stir in brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, and vinegar. Add cooked beef mixture; mix thoroughly and season with salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a 9×13-inch baking dish.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes.
- You can also put all the ingredients into a slow cooker and cook on Low, about 8 hours.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 617 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 69 g |
| Cholesterol | 75 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 10 g |
| Protein | 28 g |
| Saturated Fat | 10 g |
| Sodium | 1089 mg |
| Sugars | 39 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is definitely a family favorite and is much more than a side dish. It is very easy to make and worth the time! I use a little under 1/2 cup brown sugar so it wouldn’t be that sweet. I couldn’t find butter beans so I used norther beans, no one tasted the difference because it was equally delicious. I believe this dish tastes better day after day, the longer it sits. YUM!
This with scalloped potatoes and ham is one of my favorite dinners!!
It’s really good recipe as is.. I’ve made many times.. Always drain & rinse kidney beans, drain butter beans.. , Bush’s Grillin beans . I have substituted many different BBq sauces for the ketchup. I usually add green pepper along with the onion . Im a tangy girl ,so more vinegar, less brown sugar. Thanks for the recipe: )
This was the second time I made this delicious bean recipe. Unfortunately, sometimes I cook like a bride, and that’s what I did this time. I added a 12 oz. package of frozen baby limas along with the canned beans but didn’t precook them and they weren’t cooked enough. Tonight I added all the leftovers to a pot and slowly simmered them about 30 minutes, and this is the dish I remember loving.
love it
A tweak that I use in this is to use smoked sausage cut in 1/4 inch rounds instead of the ground beef. I also use 4 cans of beans-usually add black beans to what recipe calls for and drain and rinse all but the baked beans-Bush’s of course! Reduce the brown sugar but sometimes add a little molasses, use more onion and a little green or red or both adds to the flavor levels. Great recipe-for us it’s a meal and add some corn muffins-perfect!!
I made it as is the 1st time I made it and it was a little sweet, but it was great! I’ve made it many times since with these changes: I use a 28oz. can of Bush’s original baked beans, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 lb. of bacon, 1 tbsp. white vinegar, and 1 pepper (I usually mix 1/2 red and 1/2 green peppers). It’s not quite as sweet and the peppers add something is was missing!
I followed the recipe and then added bbq sauce. It turned out great!
My husband loved this recipe, as did I. I made it as written except added some diced green and red bell peppers to the mix. I also used great northern white beans as I did not have butter beans. The only thing I would change is to drain the kidney and white beans, as after forty minutes of cooking the dish was still too soupy to serve on a plate. Flavor was great though!
This recipe is mostly identical from an old freezer meal cookbook. Beloved by everyone who eats it. You can used any vinegar or mustard, half the beef but not the bacon. Throw extra cans of beans in if you need to feed a crowd. Freezes beautifully before or after cooking. Baking is preferable over the crockpot but still tastes great.
Used one extra can of Grilling Beans Used 1 lb. of bacon (you can never have too much bacon!) Used 1 c. onion Loved this recipe served with mashed potatoes and corn. Old home cooking!
Used one extra can of Grilling Beans Used 1 lb. of bacon (you can never have too much bacon!) Used 1 c. onion Loved this recipe served with mashed potatoes and corn. Old home cooking!
I was very excited to try this and thought all the ingredients are tasty on their own so together would be great. Wrong. Wayyyyy too sweet and I only used 1/2 cup of brown sugar. I love sweet things, but not this. I think in order to enjoy this recipe you have to remember 2 things. 1-this in no way is reminiscent of ham and beans & 2-if you make this you better like pork and beans. Sadly I doubled recipe so it was a waste of time and ingredients.
Something was off about this for me. If it’s supposed to be eaten as a meal, it’s too sweet & I’d prefer it be seasoned more like traditional chili. If it’s supposed to be a baked beans side dish, it doesn’t have that flavor profile either. I tasted it after adding each ingredient from the recipe. It started tasting off to me after I added the vinegar (and I love vinegar). Even before I added sugar I wasn’t a fan, so I don’t think it’s the sweetness. I wanted to like this, but it just didn’t make sense to my taste buds.
Delicious!
I made this as the main course rather than a side dish. It was hearty and filling served with bread or biscuits. I followed the recipe as shown and it was very good and easy. When I make this again, however, I will reduce the amount of brown sugar because it was too sweet for me. For my taste, I might even skip the sugar altogether or maybe substitute molasses, and throw in a half cup of cut green beans just for color and crunch. Otherwise, a great recipe!
We like this as a side dish so I use only about 1/4 pound ground beef–just enough to make people wonder what’s in it. Honestly, it’s just the right amount! I also drain the beans, otherwise too soupy. Beans can easily be swapped out per individual taste preference. Great recipe. Have been making it for decades!
It was a simple but good recipe. I made it as written. If I make it again I will cut the amount of brown sugar. It was a bit to sweet for our preference. Thank you for sharing.
I made this dish for my church’s picnic. The only thing I did was adding a green bell pepper the best tasting beans I ever tasted. They were gone less than half an hour!
No changes except doubling next time! We loved it!
It is very tasty! I would not use all the liquid in the cans next time, as it wS very runny.