Cooking wholefoods for your family can be as simple or as hard as you want it to be. As a working mum, I like to keep it simple by making dishes which can be used for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These Homemade Baked Beans fit that bill perfectly. Once you’ve mastered the recipe, switch up what you serve it with, add eggs, fried tomatoes, mushrooms, wilted spinach and more.
This is a simple recipe and a great one to get the kids cooking in a home economics session at home. Because I like making cooking easy, it starts off using the same ingredients and method as My Base Recipe (which I also use for spaghetti bolognaise, stir fries, soups, dahl and more).
Equipment
- food processor
Ingredients
- 1 brown onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 stalk celery finely chopped
- 1 small carrot
- 1 piece ginger thumb nail sized, grated
- 1 piece turmeric thumb nail sized, grated (optional)
- pinch of celery salt
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 3 cans Organic Mixed Beans
- 400 g passata sauce
- 1 tbsp rice malt syrup
- ½ cup vegetable stock or water
- 1 tbsp fresh basil finely diced
- 1 small zucchini cut up into thick circles then into quarters
Instructions
- Blitz the onion, garlic, celery and celery in a food processor (or chop really finely).
- Heat coconut oil over medium heat, and saute the mix from the food processor for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the grated ginger and turmeric, and saute for another 1-2 minutes.
- Remove pan from the heat.
- Drain and rinse the beans until the water runs clear.
- Add beans to the pan and stir through.
- Add the passata, rice malt syrup, bone broth, herbs, stir through.
- Place pan back on stove over high heat, and bring to a boil.
- Turn down heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring intermittently.
- Add the chunky zucchini and simmer for 5 minutes or until the sauce is nice and thick. Remember to stir intermittently.
Notes
Different Ways To Use The Beans
For Breakfast
Toast up some sourdough and serve warm beans on the toast. You can even make it real cafe style and a poached egg, add some cooked mushrooms, and wilted spinach on the side. That will be $18, please!
Another thing my family love it to place two pieces of mountain bread on top of each other, place some beans down the centre of the wraps, add some cheese, some baby spinach, then fold the sides of the bread in. Then dry toast this in a flat pan over medium heat until the mountain bread starts to brown, then flip it over. There you have a breakfast burrito.
For the lunchbox
Oh our kids get so excited to have these beans in their lunchbox because add a good handful of natural corn chips so they can use them to scoop up the beans. But you could also include them on a sandwich or in a wrap. You could also use the breakfast burrito idea from above and include that in the lunchbox.
For dinner
Our favourite is to serve them in the center of the table with a host of fresh vegetables all grated or cut up, along with lettuce cups (watch this short Facebook live to see how I make lettuce cups). Then everyone fills their own lettuce cups with the beans, and whatever vegetables they want from the center of the table.
You could turn these beans into nachos by serving with corn chips, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, sour cream etc.
Another way is to add a bit more broth to the beans, and cook them so they still have quite a bit of soupy sauce, then stir through some cooked quinoa. Serve the beans mixed through the quinoa in a bowl, top with some avocado and serve with a side of broccoli and green beans.
Want MORE protein? You can brown some mince and stir through the means to boost the meal up, even try turning the bean & mince mix into pies!
Having a great base to start with like this one is a fantastic jumping point for so many other recipes! What are your go to basic recipes that you love to switch up and customize? Let us know in the comments!
Find more healthy, wholefood, kid-friendly recipes on Bel’s website, The Root Cause.
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About the Author: Bel Smith
