Aunt Millie’s Calico Beans
This is Aunt Millie (Paulsen) Richardson's crock pot recipe for calico beans. I remember many Sunday dinners where Millie brought the beans and everyone loved them. For our dinners, this was considered a side dish. However, I can happily eat these beans with bread and butter as a full meal.
Servings 12
Equipment
- 1 crock pot
- 1 Skillet
Ingredients
- 1 lb bacon
- 1 lb ground beef or substitute a 1/2 lb each ground sausage and ground turkey
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 onion small, chopped fine
- 8 cup canned beans butter beans, Bush's baked beans, kidney beans, white northern
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp mustard
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 cup BBQ sauce or substitute combination of ketchup, brown sugar, and vinegar to taste
- 4 tbsp molasses
Instructions
- Cook bacon until crisp, and chop into bite-sized chunks when cooled.
- In a skillet, cook ground meat with chopped onions, salt, and pepper until meat is browned and onions are tender.
- While the ground meat browns, open and drain the cans of beans.
- Add meat and all remaining ingredients to the crock pot. Stir to mix. Feel free to add a few tablespoons of water if you feel like it needs to be more moist.
- Cook on low for 2 – 4 hours. Since the meat is already cooked, the crock pot is really being used just to heat and allow the ingredients' flavors to blend.
Notes
You can easily change up some of the ingredients based on what you have on hand. For example, the original recipe also calls for an addition 2/3 cup of sugar, but recommends that you add vinegar if you use sugar. And, any combination of beans works. So make it the way you like it!