Ingredients

  • 2# Great Northern Beans (Goya from Price Chopper and Best Yet from Paul’s Big M have very few rejects.)
  • 12 oz. salt pork, unsliced, remove hide, cut into 6 chunks ½ # bacon
  • 2 teaspoons dry mustard
  • 2 cups light brown sugar, packed down (Dark brown will give beans a darker color.)
  • 2 tablespoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper

Procedure

  1. Sort out discolored and broken beans and soak in cold water overnight. They will expand to 3 or 4 times their dry volume.
  2. Rinse beans, cover with about an inch or two of cold water, add 2 tablespoons baking soda and stir a few times.
  3. Watch closely while bringing to a rolling boil on high heat. Skim foam from the beans as it forms and stir a few times. When foam stops forming, remove from heat and drain.
  4. Rinse beans in cold water.
  5. Add beans and salt pork barely covered in cold water and cook on very low heat until soft when bitten, 1 to 1½ hours. I prefer to cover the pot until bubbles appear, then uncover until finished.
  6. Preheat oven to 350º F.
  7. Remove from heat, remove salt pork and discard or serve for breakfast.
  8. Add dry mustard, salt, pepper, and brown sugar, and stir to thoroughly mix ingredients.
  9. Place in 2½“ x 9” x 13” baking pan and add square pieces of bacon covering top in checkerboard pattern. That way, every serving scoop gets a piece of bacon.
  10. Bake at 350º F for 45 to 60 minutes.

“Recipe” given to Vernon Tryon, April 27, 2014 with added details, 8/22/17; 9/9/23; 10/8/24

The Story of “Dawn’s Recipe” Baked Beans

For many years — most of her life, in fact — Dawn (Dumas) Hart (1936 – 2014) was an active member of the Minetto United Methodist Church. She contributed much to the life of the congregation and one of her memorable gifts was her famous baked beans. She could be counted upon to make them for church suppers and bake sales and whenever they appeared they were quickly gone because they were unique among homemade baked beans, and they were delicious.

Once, while savoring Dawn’s beans, it occurred to me they might become the basis for a fundraiser for our church. I asked Dawn if she would be willing to give me her recipe for that purpose and she said she would. But she didn’t for a long time.

When I asked her again, she said, “To tell you the truth, I really don’t have a recipe. I just make ‘em.” I asked her, “Would you write down what you do the next time you make them?” A week later she came to church with a sheet of paper in her hand. It was her “recipe.” It listed the ingredients but did not show the quantities except for 2# of Great Northern Beans. I thought I recalled her telling me she used a pound of salt pork.

A few years went by before I decided to try to make Dawn’s beans. Sadly, she died during the interim. How could I figure out the proper quantities of the other ingredients? Applying some modern technology, I searched the internet for baked bean recipes that called for 2# of Great Northern Beans. I searched those recipes for Dawn’s ingredients to find the recommended quantities. With that information in hand, I was ready to put the recipe to the test.

I learned from my first batch that a pound of salt pork was too much, all you could taste was the salt pork. That batch contributed to my culinary training and went into the garbage.

My second batch, with reduced salt pork, was reminiscent of the taste of Dawn’s own baked beans and was pronounced a success by June and others who tasted it.

Quite a few batches have been served at church meals and sold at bake sales over the past several years, all with favorable feedback to my knowledge. I have enjoyed being the custodian of “Dawn’s Recipe” baked beans for a while, but it is only fair that the recipe now be shared with Dawn’s friends and neighbors. It was never really my recipe anyway and it would never have survived Dawn’s life but for her willingness to share.

So now it belongs to all of us. I think Dawn would be pleased to know that people around Minetto still enjoy her baked beans. I just hope that when I go to the next church supper I don’t find 27 pans of baked beans and one plate of brownies. But that reminds me of another story.

Vernon Tryon

Ministries
Nurture, Care & Health