James Beard’s Boston Baked Beans

This is a very nice recipe, and the result was a quite delicious pot of baked beans. I used meaty baby-back ribs, so the result could better be described as pork and beans. My sauce never thickened and caramelized in the oven (perhaps because I used butter beans instead of navy beans), but it did thicken over time in the refrigerator.

Made it in the crockpot and it turned out great! I used some leftover chicken broth (1cup) with the water and just barely covered the beans with water. I sliced the onion. Used 1/2 cup of molasses and a dash of cayenne. I cooked it on High for 6 hours and added brown sugar to taste after that, about 1/3 cup. I am very pleased with how this turned out and will definitely make it again! This did thicken up nicely and I think that's due to being very frugal with the water.

An update: another hour and a half in the 250 oven, followed by about 40 minutes at 350 (I was preheating for another dish) and the beans are now beautifully caramelized.

Very good. Too much liquid. Next time: don't use previously frozen spareribs, use less water, chop onion and brown in a little rendered fat and/or butter, up the mustard and pepper. Add something funky/tomatoey- doenjang? Ketchup? Fish sauce? Barbq sauce?

I made these beans for Easter. I used flageolet (Christina's Spice & Specialty, Cambridge, MA). Not quite Boston-style because they lacked the saltiness of salt pork which disappears completely when you make traditional Boston baked beans. Don't forget to push 2-3 whole cloves into the onion. I found them to be soupy also and baked them an additional two hours and they still didn't caramelize. The shredded pork was terrific. I'll surely make them again.

Seems like this might also be done nicely in a crockpot as the cook - Amanda Hesser - says that "This recipe calls for baking them in a tightly sealed casserole in an oven barely hot enough to toast bread." I like the idea of the pork spareribs or baby-back ribs.

I like my beans with more "oomph" and didn't think the 1/3c of brown sugar was nearly enough so I doubled that, plus 1/4 c maple syrup, & ended up with between 2 -3 t of sea salt. Used 5 baby backs plus 1/4 lb of pork belly cut into chunks, 1 1/2 medium onions, never added more water while baking, and left them in a timed oven overnight. Flavor and consistency so far are great - a little loose, but I'll leave them in now until they caramelize - should dry them out more.

I got an actual bean pot, lined it with bacon, cut up some baby back ribs and put those in, a big old onion and then the drained, soaked, parboiled great northern beans, the molasses, dry mustard, also some maple syrup, added a little water and baked at 250 for about 5 hours, then took the lid off and turned it to 350 for another hour and liquid thickened up nicely. Magic porky goodness awaited! Next time I’ll stick some cloves in that onion!