Homemade “Baked” Beans

I am one of those people who never EVER skips breakfast. Whenever I wake up, I am usually starving and my body is ready to take in its first meal as soon as it can. As this is the first meal of the day, I try as much as possible to make it as balanced and as healthy as possible. When I have plenty of time on my hands, I always incorporate some protein in my breakfast since it keeps me fuller for longer. And since I have really high metabolism, this works to my advantage always :).

Baked beans are one of my fave protein breakfast dishes. They are so delicious and very filling. We usually buy the ready made ones in our home but I decided to try make my own at home. They were even better than the bought ones. This you must try!

Ingredients for the baked beans

Some vegetable oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic paste

1/4 cup of hot water

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1 tin 400g haricot beans/butter beans

1/2 a cup of Ketchup

1 tablespoon of black pepper

1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder

Chilli flakes (optional)

Method

Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onion, black pepper, garlic powder and garlic slowly until soft and golden. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Add the ketchup, hot water( a bit at a time) and brown sugar and cook for 10 minutes to amalgamate all the flavors. Add the haricot beans and cook gently to reduce the sauce until it just coats the beans. If you are using chilli flakes, add them at this juncture, but is you are using fresh chilli, add them with the ketchup.

I bought my butter beans (canned) from Nakumatt at about KES.120. You can use dried bean and boil them yourself but I found the canned ones as a convinient shortcut. Just be sure to give them a good rinse after you remove them from the can. I wanted haricot/lima beans, which are smaller, but I settled for butter beans which are much larger, but in the same family as those of the small bean variety we usually have in our baked beans. They worked out perfect!

Laddle them in a bowl and serve.

The richness of the beans goes really well with the rich, dark sauce that coats them. I personally enjoy having baked beans for breakfast but these also goes really well with rice and grilled or roast meat dishes.