Our baked bean casserole with ground beef in a skillet on the stove is delicious. Easy to make with for dinner topped cheese in a killer sauce or serve as a hearty side dish for a potluck.
Bean casseroles are great. You can make them with canned or dried right out of the bag. Served warm like this one or added into a cold salad makes for a cheap potluck dish that goes with almost any protein for dinner time. (post may contain affiliate links present)
How can you add flavor to baked beans?
You can change these up a bunch of different ways. Want to make them spicy? Add some red pepper flakes, cayenne, or Tobasco into the mix. Prefer a bit of sweetness like our Apple Pie Baked Beans? Add a bit of brown sugar or like we did in those, a bit of pie filling or fruit bits.
Slow Cooker Directions
You can make this in a Crockpot too. You’d follow our Baked Beans with Ground Beef for those instructions. If I want to prep some dishes in the morning this is a great one to do just that. Takes one thing off of my list if I have a lot to cook during the holidays for sure.
Can you make baked bean casserole with dry beans?
You can. If you wanted to start with our directions of How to Cook Navy Beans you could do that, drain, and then add the sauce ingredients in with those to simmer. Homemade is always best and you can really mess with the flavors this way vs. canned which already has some sweet sauce in the mix.
Want to start from dry but faster? We have directions for Instant Pot Baked Beans here you can follow. The only difference is you would follow those directions, dump into a serving dish, saute the meat and fold together to serve.
Ingredient Notes
You are going to start with a roll of ground beef. Now if you wanted to make it spicy I would opt for spicy Jimmy Dean Sausage or half and half for just a bit of heat. Makes for a what to cook with ground beef that kids just love.
Onions diced and some green bell peppers we like diced in there but both of these are optional. I do like to saute them first to get them tender (especially so the kids won’t complain). If you do this in the bacon grease it is out of this world.
Diced slices of bacon are killer but of course optional. You could go with leftover ham after the holidays too but uncured Hormel bacon is the best.
Canned baked beans were used, pork and beans work too but I prefer brown sugar Bush’s if you ask me.
Then let’s get to the sauce. You want some good ol’ Heinz Ketchup to make the with your favorite type of Barbecue sauce, a pop of some Worcestershire sauce, a dash of regular Dijon mustard and we like cheddar cheese shredded on the top.
Baked Bean Casserole Recipe
Equipment
- 1 cast iron skillet large
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef, or ground sausage
- 1/2 c onions, diced
- 1/2 c bell pepper, diced
- 6 slices bacon
- 28 oz baked beans
- 1/2 c ketchup
- 1/2 c barbecue sauce
- 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp dijon mustard
- 1 c cheese, shredded, cheddar used
Instructions
- Add ground beef, onion, green pepper and diced bacon to a 10"-12" ovenproof skillet. Heat over medium high heat, stirring frequently until beef is browned, bacon is cooked and pepper and onion are tender. Remove from heat and drain grease. Season with salt and pepper.
- Preheat oven to 350. In the same skillet with the beef and bacon, add baked beans, barbecue sauce, ketchup, worcestershire sauce and mustard and mix well.
- Bake for 30 minutes. When cooking is complete, top with cheese and return to the oven for a few minutes or until cheese is melted.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Depending on the ingredients, yes in this case you can. First off you need a large one so the contents won’t bubble over and make a complete mess. A lid is helpful to keep it warm when done or if you are adding noodles or grains they may need time to get tender with it on. In the case of cast iron, you can saute and bake in the oven at the end.
