Vegetarian Baked Beans

Six hours sounds like a long time, but there is very little hands-on cooking here. Once an hour, I gave it a stir, and checked to see if they needed water. It will tie-up your oven, so plan accordingly if you need to cook anything that can't go in a 300 degree F. oven. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the fragrance of beans cooking in molasses and mustard.

This recipe freezes well, but you may need to add a bit of water when re-heating.

You Will Need:

4 lbs. of dried white beans (I used Navy beans)
Water to cook beans
3 bay leaves
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 tablespoon salt (you may prefer more, but I tend to go light on salt)
3 1/2 tablespoons strong prepared mustard (I had some British stuff that'll blow out your sinuses, but Dijon will work too)
2 cups ketchup
1 cup full-flavour molasses (the mild kind is OK too if you prefer it)
1 large onion, chopped


Soak the beans overnight. Cook them in the morning with the bay leaves and water until tender. Drain, reserving cooking liquid.

Combine sugar, salt, mustard, ketchup, molasses and onion. Stir into beans. Place in a large heat-proof dutch oven and cover with reserved bean water-about 2 inches of water above beans. Cover tightly and bake at 300 degrees for 5 1/2 hours, checking once per hour to stir and add additional water if drying out. In the last 1/2 hour, remove lid and cook until thick.