The Extra Step Julia Child Took For Perfect Baked Beans Every Time

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There's not a home cook alive who couldn't take a lesson from Julia Child, the grande dame of French cooking in America, who had tips and opinions on all manner of things, from the best U.S. chocolate brand to buy, all the way to how to prepare a deli-worthy tuna salad sandwich.

Luckily, though Child died in 2004, we have a wealth of her kitchen knowledge recorded, including her wisdom regarding baked beans. "The leisurely overnight soak followed by long, low simmer produces, to my mind, a bean as tender, meaty, and thoroughly pleasurable as a bean can be," Child wrote eloquently in Food & Wine. She advocated a lengthy soaking process of 10 to 12 hours for all dried beans, preferring this method to microwaving, steaming, or pressure cooking. The old song says that you can't hurry love, but, according to Julia Child, neither could you hurry baked beans. Even after soaking, her beans cooked in a ceramic crock in the oven for around 8 hours with molasses, ginger, garlic, salt pork, and spices. It was a long process, but one that produced beans that were the perfect balance of salty, savory, and sweet, with melt-in-your-mouth consistency.

It's probably not a coincidence that Child derived major components of her baked bean process from the traditional method of cooking Boston baked beans. The area around Massachusetts's capital is not called "Beantown" without reason, as those Yankees know their legumes. The salt pork, molasses, and bean pot are all quintessential aspects of New England-style beans.

Following Julia Child's method — the critical long soak followed by slow cooking — even the most mediocre bean recipe is going to taste pretty darn good. Despite being a food with a long history, however, baked beans are certainly not too precious or sacred for you to play around with them. Certainly, lots of families have their own traditions for making beans. If yours doesn't, there's no time like the present to start!

We've seen some folks add Dr Pepper to baked beans for additional sweetness, but that's not the only spin that changes up the sugar element. Brown sugar or honey are intuitive swaps, but here's a twist: try maple syrup. The sweetness in molasses is described as dark and earthy, while maple syrup is lighter and brings more of a caramel note. A dark robust maple syrup will give you more depth of flavor than the amber varietals used for topping pancakes, if you wish to preserve some of the smoky profile of molasses.

Beyond the sweetener, what do you want your beans to taste like? Mustard or apple cider vinegar will lend tanginess, while some folks swear by a squirt of ketchup or Worcestershire. If you have an appetite for heat, some canned chipotle peppers in adobo will add a spicy, smoky kiss to your beans. And don't neglect the meat; kielbasa, bacon, or even ground beef will all mix up your beans, rounding them out into a full meal!