Give Canned Baked Beans A Delicious Upgrade With A Spice You Already Have

Show us a can of baked beans, and we'll show you a cookout staple that's just dying for a little zhuzhing up. We've made baked beans spicier by adding green chilis, and we've upgraded those same beans with soy sauce for an umami burst. Of course, some folks will even make the beans sweeter by generously adorning them with molasses, brown sugar, or honey. Here's a tip that's planted alongside the "sweet" family but adds its own special something: shake in a teaspoon of cinnamon and watch the flavors pop.

Cinnamon is a bit of a rare bird in the spice drawer because it sings in both savory and sweet applications. Sure, you've seen it shine in gooey cinnamon rolls or autumnal pumpkin spice coffee, but it also has a rightful place in the savory side of Indian cuisine, Middle Eastern meat dishes, and some legendary pastas like the Greek pastitsio. For a dish like baked beans, which toes the line between savory and sweet already, a versatile spice like cinnamon — very likely already present in your kitchen! — is exactly what you need to bring forward all the best parts of your dish. 

Quite a few social media users sing the praises of cinnamon in baked beans, deeming it a secret ingredient with phenomenal power to make your loved ones sit up and pay attention without necessarily knowing exactly what's making their favorite BBQ side so darn tasty. Whether you swing for a sweeter or a more savory baked bean dish, everyday cinnamon is the powerhouse ingredient you need to make your beans taste "more."

We covered a vintage Betty Crocker baked bean casserole with apples and brown sugar, and we wonder if ol' Betty should have thrown some cinnamon in there as well to really make it live up to the Apple Orchard Bean Bake name. We're pretty split on the subject of apples and beans in a single dish here at Foodie, but you can't deny that the two heavy hitters of an apple pie, cinnamon and sugar, indisputably belong in baked beans. Speaking of apple pie stalwarts in baked beans, how about some nutmeg as well? The goal isn't to make your beans taste like a Thanksgiving dessert (not that there's anything wrong with that), but to really enhance the flavor profiles that are innate in baked beans. These can also add some nuance to the flat, one-note sweetness that might otherwise afflict quotidian canned beans.

To that end, we challenge you to not augment your spiced beans with more sweetness, but to push them in a more savory direction. With alliums like onion or garlic and complementary meats like smoked sausage, ground beef, or chorizo, your beans will not only gain bulk, but they'll be umami-forward, a profile that will really gain dimension with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Feeding vegetarians? No worries! You can accomplish the same goals with meaty sautéed mushrooms or meat substitutes like tofu, Impossible meats, chickpeas, or TVP. Such filling, complex baked beans may even outgrow the side dish role and earn a starring credit on the dinner table as a bona fide entrée.