Epic Clean Eating Baked Beans

Healthy baked beans. This recipe is going to change everything. Well, the way you eat baked beans anyway. Introducing .... the BEST Clean Eating Homemade Baked beans. Ever!

Boom! mic drop (if I had a mic)

Best baked beans? Ever? It's a big bold statement to make, but I am pretty confident that I have nailed this recipe! Yup. This is a goody.

Baked Beans For Kids

I'm going to upset some people here, but I don't like baked beans. Never have. I thought it was the beans, but turns out it's that tomato flavored sauciness they sit in. I don't even like the smell of them. Yuck. Sends shivers down my spine.

My kids though. They love them and I am the first to admit that I fed them baked beans (out the can) by the truckload for years. Yup. The canned version with all the salt, sugar and who know what else. I did it.
But now I don't.

Oh. And I now eat baked beans.  Because I've found a better way to cook them and it tastes incredible! So it turns out baked beans are not just for kids, and now I eat them a lot. Like, a lot.

Healthy Baked Beans Recipe

This simple, rustic baked beans recipe makes the best breakfast beans ever. Slight sweet. Slightly salty. A little bit smokey. Piled high on wholegrain toast topped with an egg on or a little grilled cheese. Oh my...

My kids have become attached to canned baked beans over the years, so it was a tough road trying to swap these little babies with a cleaner alternative.

I have tried a lot (a LOT) of homemade baked bean recipes and it's taken me a while to find one I actually like and can get the kids to enjoy too. I mean, whats the point of making them if no-one is going to eat them, right?

My daughter is a budding artist and her art teacher told her this, "all unique creative work has a reference, we just don't know their source".  It's so true.

Recreating baked beans was a bit like trying to reinvent the wheel. There are so many recipes to choose from.  But not all of them worked for me.

This one from the Happy Pear is one of my favourites. I used this recipe as a guide and tweaked it for a more kid friendly recipe that's not too spicy and a a little more pleasing to a fussy kids palate.

How do you make baked beans from scratch?

Making baked beans from scratch is a fairly simple process. I don't know why more people don't do it. I guess our kids just get used to the sugary flavor of tinned baked beans and that's it, game over. But, persevere. Homemade baked beans are WAY better than tinned.

The actual beans used in most store bought beans are haricot beans. That part's fine. It's the sauce that's not fine, and the list of nasties is huge, and that's what you're replacing in homemade baked beans. The result? A rich, delicious homemade tomato sauce for your beans, and you can't beat it!

The Best Ever Homemade Baked Beans

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 Shallots
• 1 Garlic Clove finely chopped and peeled
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp Raw Brown Sugar
• 1 tbsp Soy Sauce naturally fermented
• 1 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste1 bottle tomato puree around 375ml2 tins beans cannelloni or mixed beans, drained4 x Eggs4 x slices wholegrain toast
• 2 tbsp Organic Tomato Paste
• 1 bottle Tomato Puree
• 1 tins Haricot Beans or Cannelloni Beans
• 4 Poached Eggs
• 4 Wholewheat Toast

Process

• Heat pan on the stovetop. Add olive oil, onions, garlic and cook until just softened (1-2 min). Add cumin, sugar, soy sauce, apple cider. Simmer for 30 seconds while mixing. Add tomato puree, paste and beans. Stir. Cover pot and simmer on low for 3 minutes
• Cook eggs. We like to either fry or poach or eggs. Frying is a little easier for me when making a big batch
• Serve beans and egg on top of wholegrain toast
• Season if needed

Here's the recipe card for you to print out!