Baked Beans substitute

Best substitute

Ten-Minute Homemade Version

Replaces one 15 oz can

Best for cookout sides

Close match

Any cooked white bean plus the sauce, which is the part your recipe actually wants.

Other baked beans substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Canned Pork and Beans
Close match
Use the same amount by can
Essentially the same product with a thinner, far less sweet sauce.
What changes
Best for
casseroles, cookout sides, cowboy beans, calico beans
The nearest thing on the shelf. Expect a looser, more tomato-forward, much less sweet result. Add 1 tablespoon brown sugar and 1 teaspoon mustard per can, simmer 5 minutes, and most people will not know the difference.
3Canned Barbecue Beans or Chilli Beans
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by can
Pinto or kidney beans in a smoky, spiced, sweet sauce.
What changes
Best for
cookout sides, chilli, casseroles, loaded baked potatoes
Sweeter, smokier and often spicy, with bigger, firmer beans and a darker sauce. Perfectly good as a side dish in its own right, but it will take over a mixed casserole, so cut back on any other sugar, smoke or chilli in the recipe.
4Butter Beans or Lima Beans in the Same Sauce
Different texture
Use the same amount by drained volume
The bean used in many Southern-style baked bean recipes.
What changes
Best for
cookout sides, potlucks, casseroles
Big, flat and much creamier, almost floury, so the dish reads softer and more mashed than the firm little navy beans do. The sauce carries the flavour, so it still tastes like baked beans. Handle them gently; they break up fast.
5Canned Black Beans or Kidney Beans Plus the Sauce
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by drained volume
Whatever is in the cupboard, given the baked bean treatment.
What changes
Best for
casseroles, cowboy casserole, chilli-adjacent dishes
Earthier and firmer, and black beans bleed grey-purple into a pale sauce. Fine in a baked bean casserole where everything is brown anyway. Wrong for beans on toast, where the pale bean and glossy thin tomato sauce are the whole identity of the dish.
6A Different Side Dish Entirely (Honest Answer)
Taste and texture differ
Omit
When baked beans are the side, not an ingredient.
What changes
Best for
barbecue plates, picnics
If baked beans are one of three sides at a cookout, dropping them and making a bean salad, coleslaw or potato salad is a better outcome than a thin imitation. If they are an ingredient in a casserole, use one of the swaps above, because you need the sauce as well as the beans.

What is Baked Beans?

Baked Beans is Baked beans are small white beans, usually navy beans, cooked in a sweet tomato-and-molasses sauce and sold canned, either as thick American Boston-style beans or as the thinner, barely sweet British version.

Cooking tips

Do not drain canned baked beans unless the recipe tells you to. The sauce is doing most of the work, and rinsing it away leaves you with plain navy beans and no sweetness, tang or body.
British-style and American-style baked beans are not interchangeable one for one. British beans are thin, tomato-led and only mildly sweet; American Boston-style beans are thick, dark, molasses-sweet and often contain pork. If a recipe assumes one and you have the other, adjust: add brown sugar and mustard to British beans, or thin American beans with a little water and a squeeze of lemon.
If your beans taste cloying, a teaspoon of cider vinegar per can fixes it faster and more cleanly than adding salt. Sweetness reads as flat when there is not enough acid underneath it.
When you cook baked beans from dried, get the beans fully tender before you add tomato, vinegar, molasses or ketchup. Acid and sugar both stall the softening of bean skins, and beans that go into an acidic sauce while still firm can stay chalky for hours.
Baked beans thicken substantially as they cool. Pull them off the heat while the sauce still looks slightly too loose, or you will be serving bean paste.
Do not improvise home canning of baked beans. Beans are a low-acid food that requires a pressure canner and a tested process, and altering the ingredients, jar size or times in a tested recipe carries a real botulism risk. Follow the National Center for Home Food Preservation guidance exactly, or freeze your beans instead.

Frequently asked questions

What can I use instead of a can of baked beans?

Any cooked white bean plus a quick sauce. Drain a 15-ounce can of navy, great northern or cannellini beans and simmer with 3 tablespoons ketchup, 1 tablespoon brown sugar or molasses, 1 teaspoon mustard and 1 teaspoon cider vinegar for ten minutes. That covers everything the can was providing.

Are pork and beans the same as baked beans?

They are close cousins. Both are navy beans in tomato sauce, but pork and beans are much less sweet and the sauce is thinner. Add a tablespoon of brown sugar and a teaspoon of mustard per can and they stand in for baked beans well.

Can I just leave the baked beans out of a recipe?

It depends what job they are doing. In a mixed bean casserole they supply beans, sweetness, tang and sauce all at once, so leaving them out pulls the dish apart; substitute instead. As a side dish alongside barbecue, you can drop them and serve something else.

What beans are actually in baked beans?

Navy beans almost always, which are small, white, thin-skinned and very creamy when cooked. Great northern beans are slightly larger but behave nearly the same, and haricot bean is another name for the same type.

How do I make canned baked beans taste homemade?

Fry a little diced onion and bacon or smoked paprika in a pan, tip in the beans with a tablespoon of brown sugar, a teaspoon of mustard and a splash of cider vinegar, and bake uncovered at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 to 30 minutes. The uncovered baking gives you the browned edges and thick sauce that separate homemade from straight-from-the-tin.

Related substitutes

More legumes substitutes

Baked Beans substitute

Other baked beans substitutes

2Canned Pork and Beans

3Canned Barbecue Beans or Chilli Beans

4Butter Beans or Lima Beans in the Same Sauce

5Canned Black Beans or Kidney Beans Plus the Sauce

6A Different Side Dish Entirely (Honest Answer)