You guys! These dad approved crockpot baked beans with ground sausage are amazing! My mom has been cooking up a storm and she is on a crockpot kick and these baked beans were a huge hit last week. Now they are not an every week kind of meal in our house, maybe once a month as a treat. My dad is diabetic and I am all about eating healthy most of the time. What I love about this baked bean recipe is, my used less brown sugar and substituted the difference with sugar free Vermont Maple Syrup. Surprisingly, my dad’s sugar level was stable a couple hours after he ate.

Crockpot baked beans with bacon

We cheated and used microwaveable bacon. You know, the no mess kind that cooks in a bag in 3 minutes? I love that bacon but if you are old school and want the fat, greasy mess, then by all means, cook the bacon in a skillet. Don’t get me wrong, I love that kind of bacon too but I don’t like the fat and mess.

Crockpot Baked Beans with Ground Sausage

Easy baked beans with ground beef

If you have men or boys you are cooking for, you know that many of them need some sort of meat or chicken with their meal. My son and dad love ground beef or ground sausage when it comes to baked beans or a casserole recipe. My mom had ground sausage on hand so she substituted that for ground beef.

The original recipe from a three year old Casseroles and Slow Cooker magazine called for 1 cup ground beef, 1/3 cup molasses and 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar. If you are not interested in the low sugar version we shared, simply omit the syrup, and add sugar and molasses.

Related: 10 Minute Delicious loaded hot dogs with baked beans recipe

Don’t be scared of the 2 hour prep time! It’s just the beans boiling and sitting for an hour. It’s not hard labor prep work! -ha

My mom has even boiled the beans and let them sit for an hour the day before and just put them in the refrigerator until the next day.

Dad Approved Crockpot Baked Beans with Sausage

Jessica Bruno

Dad and kid approved Crockpot baked beans with sausage and low sugar. Perfect as a treat for a diabetic. The addition of ground beef or sausage creates a full meal.

2 hrPrep Time

3 hr, 30 Cook Time

5 hr, 30 Total Time

Save Recipe

Print Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb dried great northern beans
1/2 lb thick bacon slices chopped (we cheated and used microwavable back / no mess!)
2 large onions chopped
3 garlic cloves minced (we used 3 small spoonfuls of jarred minced garlic to save time)
2 cups Heinz No Sugar added ketchup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar free maple syrup
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup ground sausage

Instructions

Sort beans and rinse with cold water, cover beans with water (about 2 inches) in dutch oven/pot on stove and bring to a boil. Boil for 2-3 minutes and remove from heat. Cover and let sit for 1 hour until beans are soft. Drain and rinse beans. Then repeat boiling process. Add drained beans back to the dutch oven, add 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat, cover and let sit for an hour until beans are tender.
In a large skillet, cook bacon and once cooked, place on paper towels reserving 2 tsp of drippings. (If you buy the microwave bacon, skip this step and proceed to sauteing onion.)
Add 1 tsp olive oil to skillet and saute onion until tender.
Add garlic, cook one minute longer
Stir in ketchup, brown sugar, syrup, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper (1/3 cup molasses optional)
Drain beans reserving 1 - 2 cups cooking liquid.
Add all ingredients to crockpot stirring gently.
Add desired amount of cooking liquid based on thickness preference. My mom used 1 cup reserved cooking liquid
Cook on low in crockpot for 3.5 - 4 hours stirring occasionally

Notes

This recipe was adapted from a 2017 Crockpot magazine which originally called for stovetop cooking in a dutch oven. We omitted the molasses and used less brown sugar, substituting with Sugar Free Maple Syrup.