Brisket Baked Beans with Leftover Smoked Brisket

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Our homemade brisket baked beans recipe is made with leftover smoked brisket and dried beans, so it’s completely from scratch! The perfect bbq beans recipe if you don’t like yours too thick or super sweet, and you’ve got some leftover brisket in the fridge!

What Makes Our Brisket Baked Beans Different

Here’s my problem with most baked beans recipes – they taste more like dessert than a side dish. And so many times the beans are overly thick and so sugary that they’re more tar-like.

So we often make our own from scratch.

Our brisket baked beans are the perfect balance of sweet, tangy, and smoky flavor thanks to a few unexpected ingredients. And while we love to go for more rustic cowboy or chuckwagon-style beans with the addition of different bean varieties, you can also just use the classic dried Navy beans.

The result is a gourmet-style baked beans side dish loaded with leftover brisket that could easily pass as an entree!

Ingredients

• Beans: I went with a blend of dried beans including Navy beans, pinto, and kidney. Mixing up the beans and the addition of kidney beans gives a nice variety – not just mushy sweetness, but real body and bite. Navy beans are most traditionally used in baked beans recipes, so you can only use those if you wish.
• Leftover Brisket: The smokier, the better. Chop it into small, bite-sized cubes for even flavor. We used two pounds of leftover brisket in our recipe.
• Bacon: We added a half pound, in addition to the brisket, to make our barbecue baked beans extra meaty. To save some money, feel free to use a package of odd-cut or pieces of bacon. You can often find this for cheaper than bacon slices.
• Bell Peppers, Onions, and Jalapeños: Sautéed in a skillet with that bacon fat, the vegetables add a nice bit of variety and color to the dish.
• Sauces and Sweeteners: I combined Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar for some tang, yellow mustard, ketchup, tomato paste, molasses for that old-school BBQ flavor, and brown sugar for balance.
• Chipotle in Adobo: We used one pepper from a can of chipotles for added heat and smoky flavor.
• Garlic and Beef Stock: Add moisture and flavor.

Prepping the Leftover Brisket

For this recipe, I prefer the leftover brisket to be chopped so that you get nice bites of meat. We used an equal mix of flat and point, and diced the brisket into small cubes about 1/2″ square.

If your brisket is super fatty, you probably want to remove the excess fat while you’re chopping and discard it.

No need to reheat the brisket before adding it to the beans mixture to smoke. It will have plenty of time to heat up as the baked beans are smoking.

Using Dry Beans Instead of Canned Beans

Start at least a day ahead if you’re using dried beans (which I highly recommend for texture). Rinse the dried beans well first. Then add the rinsed beans to a large mixing bowl, and add cold water to the bowl so the beans are covered by about 3-4″ of water.

Set the bowl on the counter overnight, or at least 12 hours, for the beans to soak.

The next day, drain the soaking water. Transfer the beans to a large pot, cover with fresh water, and parboil for 1–1½ hours until they begin to tenderize. (Toss in leftover onion ends or veggie scraps for extra flavor, then discard after parboiling.)

Drain the parboiled beans well before adding to the casserole dish or dutch oven with the rest of the ingredients.

How to Make Brisket Baked Beans

Step 1: Preheat the smoker and render the bacon.

Preheat your smoker to 275°F with your choice of wood or pellets.

While the smoker is heating up, you can begin to smoke the bacon strips for the fat to start rendering. Just lay the bacon on a sheet tray and place the tray on the grill grates, letting that smoke work it’s magic while you prep the rest of the ingredients.

Step 2: Sauté the bacon, onions, and bell peppers.

After the bacon has had about 30 minutes to render, place a skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon fat drippings from the sheet tray and the bacon to the skillet with the diced onions and peppers.

Cook until the vegetables are softened and the bacon is mostly cooked through. This builds a savory, smoky foundation for your dish.

Step 3: Assemble the beans.

To assemble the beans, you simply dump all of the ingredients into a large casserole dish or dutch oven. I call this the “dump method”.

Add the drained, parboiled beans to the casserole dish first, followed by salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, tomato paste, molasses, minced garlic, a touch of brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and chipotle in adobo. (Remember – you can always add more brown sugar later if you want it sweeter!)

Pour in 1 cup of beef stock, and fold in the leftover brisket, crisped bacon, and sautéed veggies. Mix everything together well.

Step 4: Cook the brisket beans on the smoker.

Place the dutch oven or casserole dish on the smoker, and cook for about 1½ hours at 275°F. Then give it a good stir, and bump up the temperature to 350°F.

The beans will continue to soften, the sauce thickens, and all those ingredients marry.

Cook for another 1½-2 hours at 350°F, or until the beans are bubbly and thick, with caramelized edges and crisped bacon on top. For reference, the total cook time for us was 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Then remove from the smoker, and let cool slightly before serving – the beans will continue to thicken as they cool.

Serving Suggestions

These smoked brisket baked beans are the ultimate comfort food, and with all of the added meat, they’re hearty enough to be a meal on their own. Or the made-from-scratch baked beans make the perfect side dish to go along with your pulled pork, double smoked ham, or hamburgers and hot dogs.

You could even dish up the beans to go along with our favorite loaded cheddar green chile cornbread for a satisfying supper.

And be sure to check out some of our other favorite barbecue side dishes like this smoked mac and cheese or smoked potato salad.

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