Grilled Bourbon Baked Beans is a surprising treat for your next meal. Break out your favorite whiskey to add a sweet flavor and grill it in the Dutch Oven for an amazing dish!
Preparing for a cookout is never boring or mundane when we try new recipes! Putting new flavors on old classics if exciting!
🍽️ Why This Recipe Works
- These baked beans are impressive!
- They are sweet and tangy.
- Each batch makes 12 servings, so it’s great for a crowd.
- Has lots of bacon in them.
- They are thick and hearty.
- You only need ten minutes for prep time.
- They are worth the wait.
🥓 Ingredients
Bacon | Cooked and crumbled bacon adds a lot of flavor. Plus, it bumps up the protein.
Beans | You can’t have baked beans without the star ingredient! I like to use a combination of navy, black, and pinto beans.
Bourbon | It’s fine to use any bourbon that you like. You really can’t go wrong here!
Peach Preserves | The ingredient that really takes this to a whole new level is the peach preserves.
🔥 Grilling Instructions
Start out by making sure you have chopped up, fully-cooked bacon. Use quality bacon, whether it be thinly sliced or the sink-your-teeth-in thick slices. Both work great here! Heck, you could even cure and smoke your own bacon.
Step One: If using a bag of dried beans, make sure you start soaking these the night before. If you feel like in the morning they need a bit more softening, use your slow cooker on high and it will help them soften up more quickly. This time I used a mix of dried beans and canned.
Step Two: Pour all the ingredients into a dutch oven and stir until well combined.
Step Three: Place over a 325 degree grill set up for indirect heat. It should simmer for three to six hours or until all the beans are soft and the mix has thickened. Make sure to stir it periodically.
This is a great dump-and-go recipe for the grill.
💡 Expert Tips
You can leave out the Bourbon. It tends to bring out a sweet flavor and oftentimes you will see people substitute brown sugar or maple syrup. Since we already have brown sugar and peach jam in here, I wouldn’t worry about adding any additional sugars. I used some from our local distillery, KO Distilling. The have a great “Bare Knuckle” line that I like a lot.
If you don’t have the time to soak the dried beans overnight, substitute four cans of Navy Beans. You aren’t going to notice a huge difference, so don’t worry about it. I prefer to use dried beans because it is less expensive, but it does require some additional effort.
Store leftovers in freezer safe containers like the Rubbermaid brand that have the red or grey lids.
Alternatively, use Ziploc freezer safe gallon bags. Fill them up, zip, and lay them flat in the freezer. That works great as well.
Usually there are ideas to meal prep food for the grill and if I am planning on having a cookout with friends, I tend to lean towards anything that can help me speed up time when they are coming over.
- Start the beans on the grill very early on in the day so they are almost ready when friends come over.
- These are great the second day so you could make them the day before and just reheat them on the grill the day of the cookout.
- If you plan to make these the same day, measure everything that you can into a bowl and then just do a “dump and go” when you are ready. Look at the instructions above. All of the ingredients are added together so you don’t need to do anything special here besides dump and go.
🍽️ Slow Cooker Instructions
If your grill is tied up with another recipe, make this in your slow cooker. Place all the ingredients in the slow cooker and stir well. Turn on low and cook for 6-8 hours. Stir every few hours.
Recipe FAQs
Sure! I say the more, the better! Okay, you may not want to go overboard, but if you have some leftover meat to use up, go ahead and toss it in. Brisket, pulled pork, or shredded chicken are all tasty. You could even use a variety of meats if you wanted to.
I like to use dry navy beans that have been soaked overnight and canned black and pinto beans. You could also use dried beans instead of canned, but they will need to soak overnight to ensure they cook properly.
Related Recipes
Tried this recipe? Please leave a star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page. You can also stay in touch with me through social media by following me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!
Bourbon Peach Baked Beans on the Grill
Equipment
- Dutch Oven
Ingredients
- 8 oz Bacon crumbled, cooked
- ½ lb Navy Beans soaked overnight
- 1 can Black Beans drained
- 1 can Pinto Beans drained
- 1 cup Molasses
- ½ cup Tomato Paste
- 1 cup Water
- ¼ cup Yellow Mustard
- ¼ cup Honey
- ¼ cup Brown Sugar
- ¼ cup Bourbon
- ½ Onion large, chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 tbsp Ketchup
- ½ jar Peach Preserves
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients into a six quartt Dutch Oven and place on grilll on indirect heat for up to 6 hours at 325 degrees. Stir every 30 minutes or so.
- Taste test at the 1-2 hour mark. I like to decide if I need a little bit more sweetness or tanginess and adjust. For more sweetness, add ketchup or brown sugar. For more Tanginess, add yellow mustard.
- Remove from the grill when the beans are soft and the sauce has thickened. I think these taste even better on the second day and are perfect for leftovers!
Notes
- Start the beans on the grill very early on in the day so they are almost ready when friends come over.
- Baked Beans are great the second day so you could make these the day before and just reheat them on the grill the day of the cookout.
- If you plan to make these the same day, measure everything that you can into a bowl and then just do a “dump and go” when you are ready to make them. Look at the instructions above. All of the ingredients are added together so you don’t need to do anything special here besides dump and go.
Nutrition
Jason’s been firing up the grill for over 30 years after graduating from the US Coast Guard Academy. His love of finely-grilled steak and chicken led him to buy his first Weber grill to put on his apartment patio in 1992. Each military move led to a new grill (a mixture of gas and charcoal) until he fell in love with the Big Green Egg in 2008. Since then, he has added another 4 grills to the collection. Yes, he has a problem. Jason loves smoking in the ceramic BGE with exotic woods including olive wood from Egypt and hard to find varieties such as sassafras and orange wood. Jason takes the term “foodie” to a whole new level, jumping at the chance to take food tours and cooking classes during foreign travels. These have provided inspiration to incorporate new ideas into recipes when he gets back home. He has been featured in Fox News, Parade, Yahoo News, Kansas City Living and more. After retiring from the military and moving to southwest Florida, he has focused grilling and smoking locally sourced meats and fish (read: he likes to catch his own fish!)
Leave a Reply