Skip Bacon: Give Canned Baked Beans A Spicy Upgrade With This Meaty Ingredient

It's a bit of a misnomer to dub canned baked beans "humble." After all, this creamy, hearty, and comforting hug of a food goes with a zillion different ingredients, and always tastes yummy. A touch of cinnamon will give your tinned baked beans a sweet-savory twist, or you can up your veggie intake while taking them to the next level with caramelized onions. But if it's spice you're looking for, then Spain's iconic chorizo sausage is what you want. Dense, fragrant, and bursting at the seams with smoky, spicy savor, it's a delicious addition to baked beans.

For the easiest technique, you can cut slices straight into the beans. Chorizo traditionally is either mild or hot, and the thickness of your slices is one way to control the level of spice you give each bite of your baked beans. If you want to give the dish some added oomph, regardless of whether you buy mild or hot chorizo, toss your slices or chunks into a skillet and fry them first. The slightly blackened, caramelized edges also add a little texture to your unctuous beans while also amping up the chorizo's flavor. You don't need to add any oil before you fry, as the spicy smoked pork is full of fat that will largely render out. On occasion, we even pour a portion of that flavorful fat into the beans, though that's entirely up to you.

Chorizo (not to be confused with Portugal's chouriço, which we love to use in hearty, warming stews) has its origins among Spain's peasant farmers, who made the sausages from pigs raised throughout the summer. Today there is a wide range available, colored and flavored to varying degrees by the inclusion of smoked or hot paprika. It's very different from Mexican chorizo, which is made from a blend of raw pork, chile peppers, and vinegar — though we think that would also be an amazing, spicy upgrade for canned baked beans.

As well as bringing smokiness and a punch of heat to canned baked beans, chorizo also cranks up the protein and helps give our iron and zinc intake a boost, too. That is offset somewhat by its high fat and salt content, so if these are ingredients you need to keep an eye on, add chorizo to your baked beans in moderation.

As for other uses for this spicy sausage, we think it's as versatile as bacon. It's one of many ways to elevate scrambled eggs and it can add warmth and complexity to a soup or stew. Also — dare we say it — you could easily ditch the pepperoni and slice chorizo onto your next homemade pizza for a spicy, divine substitution.