Smoky Slow Cooker Pork & Beans
Speed - 100%
Simplicity - 100%
Tastiness - 96%
99%
Perfect!
Smoky bbq flavor. Melt-in-your-mouth pork. This is the best tasting pork & beans recipe available. And it's so easy to do in your slow cooker with very little effort.
Ingredients
- 1 Kilos Pork Belly
- 1 Cup Dried Navy Beans
- 2 Cups Tomato Catsup
- 1 Cup Pineapple Juice
- 1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
- 8 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Liquid Smoke
- 1/2 Teaspoon Paprika Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cumin Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Ginger Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper Powder
Instructions
- Soak beans overnight.
- Cut pork into 1 inch cubes
- Drain the pre-soaked beans
- Combine all ingredients except for pork and beans in a bowl.
- Put bbq sauce and pre-soaked beans in the slow cooker and cook ok high for 4 hours
- Add in pork cubes and continue cooking on high for another 4 hours.
This is comfort in a bowl. It's rich, it's smoky, it's warm. It's like having bbq and a chunky, hearty serving of soup in one meal. It's also an all-in-one pot preparation, so what, if any, could be more perfect?
I've used dried navy beans particularly for its availability and its good shelf life. You could use pretty much any type, or even a combination of beans for this. Fresh, dried, canned – doesn't matter. Just adjust your cooking times accordingly.
If using dried beans, like I did, it would be ideal to soften their outer membrane a bit by giving them an overnight soak in a bowl of water. Soaking also releases all the gases from those beans that could occasionally cause digestive discomfort. If doing this on short notice, a quick alternative would be to pre-boil them in unsalted water for an hour. Adding salt to the water would toughen the outer membrane of the beans, making them tenderize longer.
Next up, the bbq sauce. This home-made version really packs in a lot of smoky flavor. This is a recipe I've developed through various trial-and-error experiments. Be free to modify it in case a particular ingredient or spice inspires you to do so. Below is a basic guide if you're interested in making your own.
8 parts sugar : 1 part chili powder : 1 part spice combination
I suggest that you always include paprika in the spice component for its smoky flavor profile.
The catsup is for body, the cider vinegar for tartness, and the pineapple juice for its citrus profile.
Please feel free to share if you've come up with a pretty awesome-tasting concoction.
You can even use store-bought bbq sauce if really pressed for time. There are a lot of brands in the market that really taste excellent.
Here's the cut of pork belly that I chose to use. Notice the even layering of fat and lean meat. This would translate into very moist cuts of meat despite the long process of cooking which would dry out most lean cuts. You can use leaner cuts though in favor of special dietary preferences.
From here we're basically done. Cook the beans for 4 hours on high with the bbq sauce. Then add in the pork and continue on high for another 4 hours.
We're doing it in this sequence because the beans need more time to cook than the pork. You can however tip everything in from start to finish if you won't mind your pork falling apart into the sauce.
These beans are definitely far from anything store-bought. Aside from the better texture, who likes those canned versions that have definitely taken on the taste of tin.
The cuts of meat just blend in completely with the rest of the dish, while keeping a distinct pork flavor. I also chose to add them late in to the cooking process to make them melt-in-your-mouth tender while still having a bit of bite. Adding them right from the beginning, in my opinion, would make eating them boring.
So there you have it. Go make some for the family. Having some dinner rolls ready to mop up those sauces would be perfect!
Ingredients
- 1 Kilos Pork Belly
- 1 Cup Dried Navy Beans
- 2 Cups Tomato Catsup
- 1 Cup Pineapple Juice
- 1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
- 8 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Liquid Smoke
- 1/2 Teaspoon Paprika Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cumin Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Ginger Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper Powder
Instructions
- Soak beans overnight.
- Cut pork into 1 inch cubes
- Drain the pre-soaked beans
- Combine all ingredients except for pork and beans in a bowl.
- Put bbq sauce and pre-soaked beans in the slow cooker and cook ok high for 4 hours
- Add in pork cubes and continue cooking on high for another 4 hours.
If you're making pork and beans for the family, a 6 quart slow cooker is the standard size to get. The best one you can get right now is the 6.5 quart programmable touchscreen from Crock-Pot. Of 50 slow cookers we tested this year, that's the one I'm keeping for myself! If you want to go bigger, then the Gourmia SlowSmart is an (almost) equally cool looking slow cooker that offers a much larger capacity (8.5 quarts).
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