Baked Beans With Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles
Updated November 2, 2015
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
- Total Time
- About 3 hours (most of this is unsupervised)
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
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
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
83 grams carbs; 450 calories; 3 grams monosaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 5 grams fat; 17 grams fiber; 665 milligrams sodium; 21 grams protein; 15 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Place beans and soaking water in an ovenproof casserole. Add bay leaf and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 1 hour. Check beans at regular intervals to make sure they are submerged, and add water as necessary.
- Step 2
Meanwhile, heat oven to 300 degrees . Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a heavy skillet and add onion. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add a generous pinch of salt and the garlic and cook, stirring, until garlic is fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Stir onion and garlic into beans, along with salt to taste, tomato paste, honey or agave nectar, and chipotles, and stir together. Add sweet potatoes and bring back to a simmer, drizzle with remaining olive oil, and place in oven.
- Step 3
Bake 1 to 1 ½ hours, until beans are thoroughly soft and sweet potatoes are beginning to fall apart, checking and stirring from time to time to make sure that beans are submerged. Either add liquid or push them down into the simmering broth if necessary. Remove from heat and serve hot or warm.
Advance preparation: These taste even better if you make them a day ahead. They will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator and freeze well.
Private Notes
Comments
Is the casserole covered or uncovered in the oven for the last hour or hour and half??
Used Rancho Gordo's Eye of the Goat beans, served it to someone who doesn't particularly like beans and hates sweet potato because I like long odds, and he asked that we throw this into regular rotation. Rich flavor. Big win!
Regular old pedestrian pintos (brined overnight) work great. This is currently resting in the fridge for a day but I tasted it as it was cooling and some kind of magical alchemy happened in my kitchen tonight. After adding the onions to the beans, I heated the remaining oil and gave the tomato paste/honey/chipotle mixture a few minutes to open up before adding it as well. I can't say how it compares to the recipe as written, but I can say you won't be disappointed.
I love the zesty flavor that the adobo peppers add to the beans.
The recipes on this site vary a lot in quality of instructions, and this is a good example of what happens when a potentially great dish is poorly translated into sparse or confusing instructions. I made this and it turned into overcooked, watery mush. Here’s why: - I used red beans and soaked them overnight. As it turns out, the question of how long to soak beans is a question of how quickly they will cook later. I’m not super expert, however I have found now that, if you’re trying to cook a longer recipe like this, red beans will be absolutely turned into gellid paste by soaking over night and simmering for an hour without salt. - You absolutely must not use too much water. The key is to use a little less water than suggested and only add if it looks like the brans can’t submerge. - Sweet potatoes completely overcooked after an hour in the oven. - If you’re looking for that sweet baled bean flavor, you won’t find it here with 2 spoonfuls of sugar for an entire pound of beans. - The flavor here is clearly like a base for other flavors! Go a little savory or a little sweet but choose something more extreme. - The onions absolutely should have been cooked in the pot before adding the beans. What on earth is the point of losing that fond?
I think you missed step 2. The recipe specifically calls for sautéeing the onion for 5 minutes, then adding garlic to the skillet, before adding both to the beans.
I had some homemade chicken stock, a very small amount of bbq brisket, and some basil that I needed to use up - so I added those. I prefer a small dice on the sweet potatoes so I added them closer to the end to prevent them from becoming too mushy. Obviously, I kept the salt way down since the bbq brisket already had salt. Really nice & simple!