Heinz Baked Beans recipe – copycat!

This baked beans recipe tastes so similar to Heinz it’s almost scary. Except homemade baked beans don’t have underlying tones of artificial flavour, and the sauce isn’t slimy which I really hate about canned baked beans!

These British baked beans can be made with dried or canned beans. Quick and easy, very economical and utterly addictive!

Heinz baked beans recipe

So there’s no misunderstanding, let me explain upfront that this recipe is for British style baked beans which comes in a semi-clear tomato sauce and is traditionally served for breakfast. It’s completely different to Southern Baked Beans which is a Southern food staple and comes with a darker, more intense flavoured sweet/savoury sauce.

Specifically, this recipe today is a copycat of Heinz baked beans. A British export, firmly adopted by Aussies as a breakfast-lunch-dinner staple.

Crack open a can, tip it over toast and microwave – that was the standard method.

Heating it up in a saucepan was the posh method. Add a slice of cheese – now that was getting real fancy!

I think we have the evolution of cooking shows and rise and rise of the internet to thank for the discovery of homemade versions of canned food favourites. And for me, homemade baked beans was one of the greatest eye openers. How simple it is. And how much tastier it is.

And as someone who always had an issue with the sliminess of the Heinz baked beans sauce, discovering homemade baked beans was revolutionary! 😂

---

What you need to make baked beans from scratch

Here’s what you need to make baked beans from scratch:

Canned vs dried beans

You can make this baked beans recipe with dried or canned beans. The base recipe uses dried beans because:

1. you can’t get canned navy beans / haricot beans here in Australia, you can only get dried (as far as I am aware); and

2. cooked dried beans taste better, and you can control the texture. Canned beans are always bloated from sitting in liquid, so they’re on the soft side.

Beans used for Baked Beans

Navy beans, also known as Haricot Beans, are the beans used in commercially produced canned baked beans. They are white beans that are slightly smaller than Cannellini beans.

However, any small to medium beans will work just fine here. They don’t even need to be white!

Chicken vs vegetable stock/broth

Chicken stock gives the sauce a better flavour because it has more complex flavours than vegetable stock because it’s made from meat. It doesn’t make this dish taste “chicken-like” or meaty once cooked.

However, vegetable stock does work fine but for best results, I recommend using homemade vegetable stock (it’s the easiest of all stocks to make, and really worth doing homemade).

---

How to make baked beans from scratch

It is literally a “mix it all in the pot and simmer” job.

The only thing to do at the end is to add cornflour/cornstarch to thicken the sauce. This needs to be done at the end because excess stirring or prolonged cooking over heat makes cornflour lose its thickening powers (in case you were wondering why cornflour is always added at the end of recipes!!)

How to serve baked beans

Traditionally thought of as a side for breakfast (think a big English breakfast with poached, fried or scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms, sausages and toast) or piled onto toast (try adding CHEESE!). But there’s so much more we can do with baked beans to make it an economical, seriously delicious meal! Here are a few suggestions:

• Chicken and beans – sprinkle chicken (or any chops, or sausages) with salt and pepper. Pan fry in butter. Serve with baked beans on the side which will act as the “sauce” as well as the starch for dinner;

• Sausage and beans – either slice smoked sausages, squeeze the filling out of sausage casings or use ground sausage. Cook it in a pot, add baked beans, stir through spinach = dinner in a pot!

• Stuff baked potatoes (add cheese to this too!)

• As a side for any dinner – serve it as the starch on a dinner plate. Beans are low in GI so they’ll keep you fuller for longer!

• Emergency nachos – pile over corn chips and add a ton of cheese. How can you go wrong??

• Stuff an omelette – yep, really. Make an omelette and stuff it with cheesy baked beans!

Breads for dunking

Here are a few bread options – for toasting, dunking, mopping! The first 3 breads are all ideal for slicing > toasting > smothering with baked beans.

For me personally, I like to serve it in a bowl with bread for dunking. The whole “smother toast” thing doesn’t do it for me because I like to eat toast with my hands (well, put another way, I hate using a knife and fork for toast).

And if you pile baked beans over toast, eating it with your hands is messy business.

So I prefer the bowl method – spoon + bread for dunking. Practical and effective!  – Nagi x

---

Watch how to make it

Watch how to make this baked beans recipe – and see how truly similar it is to Heinz baked beans!

Originally published May 2014. Updated with more streamlined, better recipe (skipped unnecessary extras that didn’t add to the end result), new photos, new video and Life of Dozer section added in May 2020!

More mean bean recipes

---

Life of Dozer

Dozer on the weekend – Pupcake vs Lamb Shoulder. Agony of indecision….

SaveSave