Betty Grable’s Baked Beans recipe is a simple baked bean recipe that was handwritten and slipped into my grandmother’s old wood recipe box years ago! I made a few changes and now it’s a part of my recipe box.
Want recipes delivered right to your inbox? Sign up here! Sometimes I even send out free e-cookbooks too!
I’ve always loved looking through old recipes and cookbooks. The older the recipe the more interested I am in it, oh my word, if you give me super old handwritten recipes and I’ll love you forever!
There is just something about handwritten recipes that make me smile, especially those written by our grandmothers.
This recipe for “Betty Grable’s Baked Beans” was packed into my Ma’s little wooden recipe box along with some other tasty recipes and I thought it was the perfect picnic/cookout recipe to share with y’all today.
Here is the recipe straight from the recipe box!
Like most of Ma’s recipes, this one is just a list of ingredients so I had to kind of wing it as far as the directions go when I was making these baked beans. However baked beans are pretty easy to cook, so it wasn’t very hard to figure out how to make them.
I shared the photo of the recipe for two reasons.
- because I love looking at her handwriting and I miss her.
- because I changed up the recipe a little to fit us and I wanted you to have both my version and hers.
As most of y’all know, Thomas can’t eat onions and peppers so I took those out of our version. I added a bit of onion powder and steak sauce to ours instead.
Yes! Steak Sauce! I’ve always been a fan of steak sauce and while I love it on steaks and baked potatoes, I also love to mix it in with my burger meat, meatloaf, and baked beans.
If you haven’t tried baked beans with steak sauce you need to give it a try!
I also had to guess at the amount of bacon, salt, and pepper to add to these beans. So use my version as a reference but feel free to add more or less.
Cookouts are filling our weekends and spilling over into the weeknights these days and I couldn’t be happier. Eating outside is therapeutic to me and I like to soak it up as much as I can during the summer months.
These baked beans are the perfect side dish for Cheese Stuffed Bacon Burgers or BBQ Hamburgers! Just think, a scoop of Betty Grable’s Baked Beans, a freshly grilled burger and an ear of grilled corn with herb butter for dinner!
Sounds like perfection to me!
Speaking of Betty Grable’s Baked Beans, I have no idea where the name came from!
Were they named after the famous Betty Grable?
Did the name come from someone she knew named Betty Grable? Was this a recipe that she jotted down from a friend or was it one was scribbled out while reading a great cookbook?
I wish Ma was here so that I could ask her. There are so many questions I have about some of the recipes in her recipe boxes!
But I guess that’s one of the reasons that I’m fascinated with them.
Betty Grable’s Baked Beans
Betty Grable's Baked Beans
Betty Grable’s Baked Beans recipe is a simple baked bean recipe that was handwritten and slipped into my grandmother’s old wood recipe box years ago! I made a few changes and now it’s a part of my recipe box.
Ingredients
- 1 can (28 oz) baked beans (I use brown sugar and bacon flavored)
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1 tablespoon steak sauce
- 1/2 tablespoon onion powder
- 2 pinches of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 6 -8 thick cut bacon strips, cut into 1-inch piece
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a skillet, cook bacon pieces on medium heat until almost crispy.
Drain on a paper towel.
In a large bowl, mix together the beans, molasses and steak sauce.
Stir in onion powder, salt and pepper.
Stir in bacon and pour into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish (or 2 quart).
Bake for 1 hour.
Stir before serving.
Love it? Pin it!
Penny Wolf says
Hi Angie! I too use Betty Grable’s recipe for inspiration for my baked beans. I use her ingredients but adjust the amounts. The recipe was in my Mothers recipe box and were the beans we grew up on the later part of my childhood.
Mom had written on the card that the recipe was published in Reader’s Digest 1970. Maybe that is where your Grandmother got her recipe too.
Angie says
ooo I bet that’s where it came from! That’s awesome!
Helen at the Lazy Gastronome says
I have a few of those handwritten recipes that I cherish – not for the recipes as much as the memories they invoke. Thank you for sharing this – Have a fabulous 4th of July.