These bacon-filled and smoker cooked baked beans are THE Ultimate Smoky Baked Beans for your all of summer barbecues!  Smoked Baked Beans never tasted so good!

Since having Lars, I went back to work as a physical therapist two days a week after my maternity leave.  We’ve been really fortunate so far that we haven’t had to send him to daycare because on one of the days I work Marc stays home with him and on the other, Marc’s mom usually watches him.

The deal on the day that I work and Marc is home with Lars is that Marc is in charge of dinner.  I don’t care if we get takeout, eat boxed mac and cheese, or have popcorn for dinner, I just don’t want to have to think about cooking.
Luckily, Marc has become the master of the electric smoker so I’ve been spoiled all summer with tons of smoked pork, brisket, and ribs.  While a big plate of smoked meat is great and all, I do love me some sides.

Our go-to sides are usually cornbread and baked beans and while I don’t mind cornbread from a box, the cans of baked beans leave a LOT to be desired, in my opinion.  So, I went on a mission to make an amazing smoked baked beans recipe.

Mission: completed, because these smoked baked beans are IT!  They have absolutely everything we could want in our baked beans.  They are, most importantly SMOKY.  I hate when baked beans are just super sweet and don’t have much else going on.  These baked beans are not only smoky from a decent amount of bacon and the bacon grease sauteed veggies (oh yes I did.) but we also made them in the smoker.

But!  Don’t go running away if you don’t have a smoker, because I promise these will still be super delicious baked in the oven and included directions for the oven.  Pinkie promise.

This recipe starts with the bacon-fat sauteed veggies and to that you add a couple cans of baked beans, some tomato sauce, Worcestershire (a must!), mustard powder (another must!) and a secret ingredient – crushed pineapple.  We all loved the little chunks of pineapple throughout these beans!  The jalapeno gives the beans a tiny bit of spice but if you like a lot of spice – go ahead and add two.

This recipe makes a lot of beans which make for great leftovers (baked bean sandwiches, anyone?  Anyone?) but you could easily halve the recipe if you want to scale it down!  My advice?  Plan a backyard barbecue JUST for an excuse to make these beans…they will be a hit!