Dr Pepper Baked Beans Recipe

These homemade Dr. Pepper baked beans with bacon start with simple canned beans and turn into a sweet, salty, glazy, delicious side dish. Easy stovetop-to-oven preparation, all in one skillet.

“A delicious, easy to make recipe.”

—Gary

These Dr. Pepper Beans Are Your New BBQ Staple

This Dr. Pepper baked beans recipe is one of my very favorite ribs side dishes, but it also goes with pretty much any other summer entree, which means this is a side dish that is on repeat in our house all summer long.

After researching and testing many (MANY!) ways to make baked beans, including everything from completely-from-scratch recipes to doctoring up pre-made canned baked beans, I’ve settled on a semi-homemade approach to this recipe.

It gives you all the sweet and salty bacon goodness you think of when you picture baked beans, but you don’t have to mess with soaking beans the night before.

Three Main Ways to Make Baked Beans

After a lot of time spent researching how to make baked beans with bacon, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s three main ways to make them:

1.) Buy the ready-to-eat canned kind and heat them up. Personally, I don’t prefer these. There’s also a 1a.) where people will buy canned prepared baked beans and then “doctor them up” by adding bacon and other things, but I’ll pass.

2.) Make them completely from scratch, using dried beans. To be honest, I don’t have much experience cooking with dried beans except for my recipe for ham and bean soup, as I prefer using canned beans for things like leftover turkey chili and taco soup slow cooker.

3.) Start with plain, canned beans and add all of the ingredients to make them into sweet, salty, glazy, delicious baked beans. This is what I’m doing with this Dr. Pepper baked beans recipe.

Ingredients for Baked Beans With Bacon

• canned beans – I used Great Northern beans for these Dr. Pepper beans, but just about any canned bean can be a blank slate for baked beans, including cannellini, pinto and navy beans.
• bacon – no need to cook the bacon in the oven first for these Dr. pepper beans with bacon, we’ll be cooking it right in the skillet! Real pork bacon is best here (and in bacon grease gravy), so save the turkey bacon for breakast, and check out my tutorials on how to cook turkey bacon in the oven and turkey bacon air fryer.
• onion – half of an onion; yellow or white is best. But red onion would also work for cast iron baked beans if you have it.
• garlic – two cloves, mince them up!
• Dr. Pepper – or any type of cola, like root beer or Coca Cola.
• molasses – this adds sweetness to this Dr. Pepper baked beans recipe and make the beans glazy.
• ketchup – this adds a bit of acidity and umami to the skillet baked beans.
• light brown sugar – you can’t have baked beans without brown sugar!
• apple cider vinegar – the acidity helps balance the sweetness in this Dr. Pepper baked beans recipe.
• Worcestershire sauce – this adds a distinct umami flavor that really can’t be replicated! It’s also key in my creamy chicken stroganoff and mini shepherd’s pies.
• spices – you’ll need ground mustard, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper.

How to make Dr. Pepper beans

1. BACON. Cook the bacon in a cast-iron skillet until it is crisp, then transfer it to a paper-towel lined plate. Leave a bit of drippings in the skillet but discard the rest.
2. AROMATICS. Cook the onion, and then the garlic, in the remaining bacon drippings until they are softened.
3. EVERYTHING ELSE. Add the beans (and the bean liquid from one of the cans), Dr. Pepper, molasses, ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, ground mustard, Worcestershire, salt, pepper and cayenne to the skillet.
4. HEAT TO BOILING, REDUCE TO SIMMER. Heat the mixture to boiling, then reduce the heat and simmer until the mixture is reduced by about a third.
5. BAKE. Add the reserved bacon back to the skillet, then transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 1 hour or until sauce is thickened and glazy, stirring once halfway through, if possible.

How to Serve Dr Pepper Baked Beans

My favorite entree to go with this Dr. Pepper baked beans recipe is baby back ribs, like my root beer ribs or slow cooker baby back ribs (don’t forget the dry rub for ribs). Country style pork ribs oven are another great (cheap!) option.

These Dr. Pepper beans are also delicious served with chicken, like drumsticks marinated in buttermilk chicken marinade, breasts marinated in Greek marinade for chicken, or buttermilk chicken tenders.

Cast iron baked beans also make a great side dish for burgers, like my umami burger recipe or bloody mary burger, or Mexican street hot dogs.

This Dr. Pepper baked beans recipe is also so good when paired with a simple salmon sandwich.

Baked Beans with Bacon Storage

If you have leftover baked beans with bacon, transfer them to a storage container and place them in the fridge uncovered for a few hours until they are fully chilled, then cover them with the lid and keep in the refrigerator up to 3 days.