Beans, beans, good for your heart. And probably digestion, as the saying goes! High in fibre, nutritious and inexpensive. And MUCH better made from scratch.

What kid doesn’t love baked beans? Well, actually, I didn’t. I don’t think I even tried them until I was about nineteen and at university, when baked beans and two-minute noodles seemed like adequate nutrition. In total. Maybe with vegemite toast as a backup. Been there? Anyone?

I was adverse to the texture, mainly. My universe of baked beans was limited to the kind out of a tin, stodgy without being satisfying, and kind of salty without carrying any kind of real flavour.

At the end of university and in a good vegetarian stint I shared a grungy old Sydney house with one of my sisters, who to this day likes to remind me about the terrible mixed beans I made relentlessly and in epic volumes that even my dog would not eat. It was heavy on unadulterated plain tinned beans, probably not rinsed properly, and without enough onion or garlic or tomato to break through the earnestness and economy of it. She’s fine, by the way, my sister. Unharmed by my vaguely military catering. She subsequently married a vegetarian and is now extremely competent at beans and tofu herself.

Anyway, I grew to LOVE baked beans. My kids as smallies and teenagers loved them. I learnt to rinse properly, flavour and cook thoroughly, and think about balance. I believe that lovely dog, long passed, would have gobbled these up. Possibly even my youthful bean-adverse and vaguely ungrateful sister.

This recipe below gives you instructions on using dried beans as well as tinned – just a note to say that dried beans can sometimes take longer to cook than noted here, if they’ve been stored for ages. HOT TIP: add a pinch of bicarb soda to your soaking beans to properly soften them up. Rinse thoroughly before cooking. The beans will be creamier and a bicarb-soak should reduce some of the complex sugars in the beans which can be responsible for bloating and gassiness.

A note on beans: Navy beans are the traditional and best beans for baking. They’re also sold as Great Northern Beans here in Australia. Cannellini (lima) beans are good too. If you happen to live near an awesome Italian grocery, you’ll usually be able to find big, very economically-priced bags of dry navy beans. Wish I knew THAT when I was nineteen.

Serves 4
 
Ingredients

375 g dried beans, or 2 x 400 g (14 oz) tins beans, drained
2 onions, finely diced
oil, for frying
6 tomatoes, puréed in blender, or 1 x 400 g (14 oz) tin tomatoes
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste (concentrated purée)
1 ½ tablespoons Brown Sugar
2 teaspoons smokey paprika
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Method

If using dried beans, soak your beans all day or overnight with a good pinch of bicarb soda, then rinse and cook for about 30 minutes on the stove, covered with fresh water, until tender.
Preheat your oven to 160°C (320°F).
Sauté the onion in a little oil in a heavy-based oven-proof saucepan then add your tomatoes, mustard, worchestershire sauce, tomato paste and brown sugar. Cook for a minute then add the beans plus the paprika, salt and pepper, put a lid on it and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
Loving these beans. Optional: for extra smokiness, add in a tablespoon of chipotle peppers with the beans if you happen to have chipotle on hand. Sister-approved.

Recipe adapted from Fiona Weir’s book “From Scratch” published by Hardie Grant 2022, photography by Alan Benson