The GüdDish Baked Beans
We studied 783 recipes from around the world and combined the most exquisite 18. Then we built the BEST!
Ingredients
- 3 (15 oz) cans navy, pinto, or pork and beans
- 8 slices thick-cut bacon
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard or Dijon
- 1 tbs apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
What the best recipes taught us
- Cook the bacon first, then the onion in that fat. If you skip that, the pot will not have a bacon base.
- Bake uncovered until the edges turn sticky. If you cover the pot, the sauce stays thin.
Method
- 1
Heat the oven to 350°F.
In a Dutch oven or heavy pot, cook the bacon over medium heat until the fat comes out and the pieces are browned, 6 to 8 minutes.
Stir in the onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is soft, 5 to 7 minutes.
- 2
Stir in the brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, and vinegar.
Add the pepper and a little salt. Taste. Bacon is salty, so go light.
- 3
Stir in the beans with some of their can liquid, or a splash of water if they are all drained. The sauce should just cover them.
Bring to a simmer on the stove.
- 4
Move the pot to the oven. Bake uncovered, stirring once or twice, until thick and the edges are sticky, 45 to 60 minutes.
Rest 10 minutes. The sauce tightens as it cools.
Behind this recipe
We studied the best recipes. Then we built the BEST version!
For every GüdDish, we go far beyond finding a highly rated recipe.
We analyze recipes from across the web, weigh the evidence behind their ratings with GüdScore (our ranking system), and study the ingredients, techniques, and details that set the strongest recipes apart. We also go through unrated recipes and YouTube methods. Those cannot be scored in GüdScore, but we still explore them for techniques and ingredients that help us build the absolute best Baked Beans. We then distill the best of what we find into a single recipe — the GüdDish.
The result is not simply a version of the most popular recipe. It is built from the best ideas, techniques, and ingredients found across the best recipes in the world.
This is the Baked Beans that came out the other side.
Behind this Baked Beans
131Roster sites scanned
783Candidate methods touched
783Kept in dish corpus
538GüdScore-rated (auditable)
13,900Ratings on scored rows
And that is just one dish.
2.54M+ ratings analyzed and 93K+ recipes ranked. GüdDish itself is the product of thousands of hours of research into ranking and synthesizing the world's recipes. The GüdDish Baked Beans is one result of that exploration.
1
We searched
The recipe internet is enormous. There are thousands of Baked Beans recipes, each with different ingredients, techniques, ratings, and traditions. Some have tens of thousands of reviews. Some have none. Some of the best ideas live in videos rather than recipe cards.
GüdDish searches across all of it.
We start with the recipes we can measure, then look beyond the rankings for strong unrated recipes and video methods that reveal techniques shared by the best-rated recipes.
2
We measured
We do not simply count stars.
GüdScore looks at ratings, review volume, site behavior, and consistency so that high-volume publishers do not automatically win and small samples do not masquerade as certainty.
For this Baked Beans:
- 783 recipes in the dish corpus
- 538 with verifiable ratings (GüdScore pool)
- 103 hosts in corpus (84 of those rated)
- 13,900 ratings on scored rows
- 131 roster sites scanned for candidates
We also studied 4 additional methods outside the rated ranking pool (3 unrated publisher). They cannot receive a GüdScore, but their ingredients and techniques can still contribute to the final GüdDish when they add something the evidence supports.
3
We learned
We do not stop at the recipe ranked number one.
We study the strongest recipes together. We look for the ingredients that repeatedly appear in exceptional recipes, the techniques that consistently produce better results, and the details that separate a good recipe from a great one.
We also pay attention to where the best recipes disagree. Sometimes that disagreement is meaningful. Sometimes it is just noise.
We do not copy the best recipes. We learn from them.
What the best recipes taught us
- Cook the bacon first, then the onion in that fat. If you skip that, the pot will not have a bacon base.
- Bake uncovered until the edges turn sticky. If you cover the pot, the sauce stays thin.
Core is what the evidence consistently supports for this dish. No optional list on this GüdDish.
4
We built
Then we put everything together.
The strongest rated recipes establish the foundation. Unrated recipes and video methods can add techniques and ideas when they reinforce what the evidence tells us.
The result is not the most popular recipe. It is not somebody's favorite.
It is the recipe we believe represents the absolute best version of Baked Beans after studying the strongest recipes, the evidence behind them, and the ingredients and techniques they have in common.
This is GüdDish.
For every GüdDish, we ask
- What happens if we do not settle for the best recipe we found?
- What if we studied all of them?
- What if we compared the ingredients, the techniques, the proportions, and the reviews?
- What if we kept going until we could build something better?
That is GüdDish.
The publishers we read
Recipes behind this blend
Sources we studied while building The GüdDish. Their full methods stay on their sites. Full CrowdScore ranking is under Rank.
- Baked Beans With Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles (cooking.nytimes.com)
- Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Brown Sugar Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Infineon Raceway Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Spicy Baked Beans (cooking.nytimes.com)
- Mama Neely's Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Easy Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Mary's Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Bourbon Chicken (geniuskitchen.com)
- Perfectly Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Peach, Bourbon and Bacon Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com)
- Baked Beans (tastesbetterfromscratch.com)
Kitchen notes For those who want to see exactly how we built it
How we studied this dish. The full method is on How GüdDish works.
Build notes
- Shopping list order: main protein or lead of the dish first (shrimp, pasta, meat, eggs, etc.), then support, seasonings last.
- Method standards v1 applied (data/method-standards.json).
Methodology
- 783 Baked Beans recipes in the dish corpus (rated + method digs)
- 538 of those have verifiable ratings for GüdScore
- 103 distinct hosts in the corpus
- 84 hosts contribute rated rows
- 13,900 ratings in the evidence pool
- 131 standard roster sites scanned for URL candidates
- 13 CrowdScore contenders in the ranked synthesis core
- Synthesis pool of 18 methods (never larger than recipes studied)
- 4 extra methods (YouTube 0, unrated or opaque bodies 3, authority 0, pattern 0). Used for technique and ingredients only. Never counted as GüdScore votes.
- Consensus threshold: ingredients need to show up often enough in the top tier before they make the required list
- Method family: bake (dedicated builder)
- GüdScore corrects for rating inflation and thin samples. Stars alone never decide the ranking.
- The GüdDish method is original wording. We never paste publisher instructions.
- No invented votes. The combined method is not a CrowdScore entry.
How GüdDish works covers the full pipeline and GüdScore in detail.
The GüdDish is our combined method, not a CrowdScore entry. No invented votes. Rank is the evidence layer if you want to dig deeper.
Evidence
What we measured
GüdScore ranks published recipes by evidence strength. This is what we learned from. Cook The GüdDish for the recipe we built from that field.
Evidence verdict
Clear Winner
This recipe pulled away from the rest of the field. The order is stable enough to treat number one as the answer.
#1 ranked recipe
cooking.nytimes.com
· top 1% of 538 analysed
5.00 from 405 ratings
Open recipe at cooking.nytimes.com →Answer for citation
The GüdDish for Baked Beans is our cookable blend from top methods. #1 published recipe on the open web (as of 2026-08-17): Baked Beans With Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles from cooking.nytimes.com (538 rated recipes, 84 sites).
Why it ranked first
This recipe
5.00
cooking.nytimes.com avg
4.49
Ahead of its publisher by 0.51 stars. That gap, not the raw rating alone, drives the rank, because a 4.99 on a site where everything is 4.99 means little.
- 405 people rated it, enough that the score is not resting on a handful of opinions.
- That combination puts it in the top 1% of every Baked Beans recipe we analysed.
Runner-up: Baked Beans (foodnetwork.com), ★ 4.89 from 66 ratings.
What this takes
10 ingredients · 3 steps
- 1 pound red beans, San Franciscano beans, or pintos, washed, picked over for stones, and soaked in 2 quarts water for 4 hours or overnight
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 yellow or red onion, chopped
- Salt to taste
- 2 to 4 garlic cloves (to taste), minced
- ¼ cup tomato paste
- 2 tablespoons honey or agave nectar
- 2 chipotles in adobo, seeded and minced
- 2 large sweet potatoes (1 ½ to 2 pounds), peeled and cut in large dice
Full evidence ranking
Showing 10 of a 10-slot list for this dish’s pool of 538 scored recipes. First 10 clear the full CrowdScore floor (at least 20 ratings and 4.5+ stars), ordered by how far each beats its own publisher after we adjust for rating volume. Star ratings and counts are the publisher’s public evidence when present. Close places can still reverse with more data.
-
1Baked Beans With Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles5.00 from 405 ratings
-
2Baked Beans4.89 from 66 ratings
-
3Baked Beans5.00 from 50 ratings
-
4Traditional Boston Baked Beans Recipe5.00 from 36 ratings
-
5Best Baked Beans4.92 from 70 ratings
-
6Italian Baked Beans and Kale5.00 from 62 ratings
-
7Easy Baked Beans Recipe with Brown Sugar5.00 from 32 ratings
-
8Baked Beans Recipe4.98 from 41 ratings
-
9Crockpot Baked Beans5.00 from 25 ratings
-
10Recipe for Baked Beans4.97 from 32 ratings
Major publishers (ratings not CrowdScore-verified)
Some major publishers show star totals without review-level data we can audit. Those aggregates never enter CrowdScore. They can still appear here as honest publisher claims or as method references. Below: top claims for this dish.
Also close to the winners
These recipes do not clear the CrowdScore vote floor (or are GüdDish’s own consensus recipe). They are ordered by method match: how much their ingredients and techniques look like the top rated contenders. This is not GüdScore and not a star prediction. Proof chips show why each one scored.
Target: 10 core ingredients and 3 consensus techniques from the top 17. Pool scanned: 456 low-vote recipes.
GüdDish recipe
GüdDish Baked Beans
100method match
10/10 core ingredientscook bacon and onion first, brown sugar ketchup molasses sauce, oven bake until thick and caramelized5 optional overlaps
Barbecue Baked Beans
78method match
10/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized4 optional overlaps
Baked Beans
74method match
10/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized2 optional overlaps
Boston Beans
72method match
10/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized
Boston Baked Beans
70method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized3 optional overlaps
Best Baked Beans Recipe
70method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized3 optional overlaps
Southern Brown Sugar Baked Beans
70method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized3 optional overlaps
BBQ Baked Beans
68method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized2 optional overlaps
The Best Baked Beans
68method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized2 optional overlaps
Southern Baked Beans with Bacon
68method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized2 optional overlaps
Southern Baked Beans with Bacon
68method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized2 optional overlaps
Country Style Baked Beans
68method match
9/10 core ingredientsoven bake until thick and caramelized2 optional overlaps
Behind the evidence
538Recipes rated
84Sites
13,900Ratings
Very highOrdering confidence
What enters GüdScore
We only put a recipe in GüdScore when we can check the evidence behind its rating at the review level. Sites that only publish closed aggregate stars, without recoverable reviews, stay outside that score rather than being quietly down-weighted. Where we can rebuild ratings from raw public reviews, we do that before a recipe competes. Full methodology: How GüdScore works.
FAQ
What should I cook for Baked Beans?
Cook The GüdDish on this page. It is our combined method from the strongest recipes we studied. The Rank tab shows which published recipes scored highest under GüdScore. Citation: The GüdDish for Baked Beans is our cookable synthesis of the strongest methods we studied (as of 2026-08-17). #1 published recipe by GüdScore: Baked Beans With Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles from cooking.nytimes.com (538 rated recipes, 84 sites). Ranking verdict: Clear Winner.
How does GüdDish build the recipe?
We search the open web for methods, measure rated recipes with GüdScore (evidence engine), study ingredients and techniques that set the strongest ones apart, then build one GüdDish. GüdScore does not hand you a single best recipe alone. Details: https://guddish.com/method.html
What does the verdict mean?
The Rank verdict describes the published-recipe competition, not a grade for The GüdDish. Clear Winner means number one is well ahead. Close Contest, Photo Finish, and Split Decision mean the top recipes are hard to separate. Limited corpus means we analyzed fewer recipes than a mature dish.
Why are some big publishers missing from GüdScore?
GüdScore only includes ratings we can audit at the review level. Sites that only expose closed aggregate scores, without recoverable review data, stay outside that score. Their recipes may still inform technique. See How GüdDish works for the full rules.
How often is this updated?
This page’s data was last scored or re-synced on 2026-08-17.
The public Rank is the top 10. The rest of the scored pool lives in the JSON API, not on this page.