11 Summer Foods That Pair Well With Baked Beans

Ah, summer! Outdoor barbecues, picnics in the park, and cold meals enjoyed on patios are part of what make the heat and sun that much more fun.

One of the must-haves for any of these events is a side dish that will evoke memories of summers past just from the smell: baked beans. You can heat them up straight from a can or use one of the many recipes for spectacular baked beans – but if you really want to make this dish shine, sometimes it's more about what you pair them with. While baked beans can get lost on tables packed with other sides like coleslaw, cabbage, corn, and potato salad, pairing something with the beans is a great way to make the dish stand out.

Perhaps you've found yourself with a surplus of ready-to-eat canned beans, or maybe you're just looking for a creative idea to shake up this season's barbecues. Whatever the case, we've got 11 ideas for summer foods that will pair perfectly with baked beans. Some of them may surprise you, while others are tried and true classics, but all of them will make your mouth water as you plan your next menu.

Baked beans and cornbread go hand in hand like tequila and lime juice. Two classic summer cookout side dishes, it would almost be sad to see one on the table without the other. That sugary sauce the beans sit in needs something to soak it up, and cornbread is the perfect solution. With a relatively mild flavor and a hint of butter and salt, it's the perfect complement to a sweet baked bean.

Perhaps you've loaded your baked beans with chunks of veggies, hotdogs, or ground meat and are quite proud of the result. All you need to do to make this dish stand out is add a nice slice of cornbread to the side of the bowl (almost like you would with chili) and voila — your baked beans have become the star.

Baked beans and cornbread can also be combined into one in a cornbread casserole. The beans are layered at the bottom of the cast iron, sometimes with ground beef or sausage, and cornbread batter is poured over top and baked until golden. The result is a multi-layered dish that will save you the trouble of using two serving plates while tasting just as wonderful.

Brisket and beans just make sense together. The smokiness of the meat, the sweetness of the beans, the fat, salt, and rich molasses all play together. At beloved brisket locations across the United States, you'll find baked beans displayed as a carefully selected side dish, and they work just as well at your home barbecue.

The thing with putting baked beans up as a side for brisket is that there's nothing to hide behind. If you're dumping them right out of a can, it will detract from the quality of brisket; this is the time to add your own finesse to your baked beans and make them worthy of their essential side-kick role.

If your guests can handle the heat, consider adding dried chilis or chipotle to your beans for a kick. Those fatty pieces of brisket can be quite a mouthful and do well with a side that's ready to cut through the collagen and cleanse the palate. A splash or two of apple cider, red wine, or even balsamic vinegar can help achieve the same result.

Fruit and beans don't often make appearances together, but once you try your brown sugar-laden baked beans adorned with slightly charred, perfectly soft grilled peaches, you might just make a habit of it. Baked beans are already cooked in sugar, so why not maximize the sweetness? A grilled peach will get a little smoky, and the juices have a more concentrated flavor. The smoke and sweet will blend in seamlessly with the flavor profile of the beans.

You can cook the sliced peaches into your baked beans, or use picturesquely grill-marked halves to adorn the top of a bowl of beans for a more dramatic effect, putting your "secret" ingredient on full display. Using bacon in the beans will complement the smokey flavor of the grilled peaches, but you could also use prosciutto for a salty twist.

For this incredible summer pairing, we're pulling inspiration from the Caribbean: Salt fish and baked beans is a classic Jamaican dish that combines the dried and preserved salt fish (which also co-stars with ackee in Jamaica's national dish) with baked beans and a lot of flavor. We may not often see fish combined with baked beans in the United States, but this dish truly makes it a staple.

Recipes for salt fish and baked beans usually start with a can of pre-prepared baked beans, but you can use other ingredients like garlic, onions, Scotch bonnet peppers, and thyme to up the ante. The salt fish is rinsed of its preservative salt-coating, boiled to soften it, and cleaned of all bones before being stirred into the seasoned beans and broken up into tender flakes of fish.

The salt fish and baked beans can be served on its own or with other Jamaican sides, like boiled plantains and dumplings. These foods are also fantastic ingredients to pair with baked beans, even if you can't find salt fish to include.

Tomatoes have the right flavor profile to go with just about anything, and baked beans are one of them. When stewed, sautéed, poached, or grilled, the skin of the tomato slackens, water evaporates, and the inside condenses into a subtlety sweet explosion. In that respect, there's a big difference between raw and cooked tomatoes, and using the right preparation to pair with baked beans is an important choice.

If you're making baked beans with smoked bacon or ham hocks, then grilling tomatoes to pair will be an especially delicious cooking method, with the smoke and char acting as complementary flavors. You could use small cherry tomatoes speared onto skewers or giant heirlooms cut into slices and drizzled with a bit of oil and salt to prevent sticking. From there, you can either combine your cooked tomatoes with the beans, use them as a garnish, or craft a separate salad with chunks of cheese and other grilled vegetables to serve alongside your baked beans.

No matter how you choose to plate your tomatoes and beans, you can be sure these two summer foods will work well together. The acidity of the tomatoes will counterbalance the maple syrup and brown sugar sweetness of the beans, while the smokey undertones of both ingredients brings the two together.

Pulled pork is a summer favorite at the cookout table. Great for sandwiches, in tacos, or on its own, it's one of the few proteins you can make ahead of time for the barbecue with minimal effort. After all, once you get the ingredients together with a pork shoulder you can forget about them in the oven or crock pot for a few hours until it's time to shred.

Pulled pork and baked beans co-mingle on a plate splendidly, the richness of the pork pairing excellently with sugary, molasses-laden beans. And there are a few ways you can combine these two ingredients that make the experience even better. A pulled pork sandwich can be made a little sweeter (and messier) by adding a scoop of baked beans to the bottom bun (putting them on the bottom bun will allow the sauce to soak into the bread rather than run off). You can also combine the two into a pulled pork and baked bean chili topped with cheddar cheese, sour cream, and cilantro — a great dish for cool summer nights when you want to heat something up quickly.

While tacos can be enjoyed any time of year, there's something about summertime that makes them  taste even more amazing. Bonus: Tacos pair incredibly well with baked beans. The beauty of this pairing is that tacos are usually made with a rich, grilled meat and loaded with spice and zest. The flavors are bold, but rarely ever sweet — making baked beans the perfect side. The caramel-like sauce of good baked beans can be just what you want in order to balance out a plate of smokey, umami, and spiced tacos — and all these flavors become that much more pronounced with a little sugar on the side.

If you'd rather go a vegetarian route with your tacos, you can even use baked beans as the filler in place of meat. Reminiscent of a black bean taco, baked beans will add a little more barbecue-magic to the dish by combining two great summer foods into one. Topping varieties are endless, but shredded cheese like smoked Gouda will make the beans shine, and straightforward ingredients like onions and salsa roja are all you really need to make these tacos complete.

What makes a better summertime dish than good seafood? Whether it's fresh prawns or frozen shrimp you're looking to use, don't skip over the baked beans as a tasty companion. They may not be put side by side often, but baked beans and shrimp make for an excellent duo.

There are some tricks you can use to make your baked beans and shrimp play well together on the plate, such as taking a Mediterranean approach to both. If you're making baked beans from scratch, consider using a white bean like cannellinis or Great Northern beans as the base, and adding Spanish chorizo as well. The chorizo will bring more richness to the beans, complementing the lightness of shrimp. 

When cooking your shrimp, you can use bright, refreshing ingredients like saffron, lemon juice, garlic, or a splash of wine to really bring out the ocean-inspired flavor. Plate your shrimp and beans side by side for easy mixing, or add the shrimp to the top of a bowl of baked beans and garnish with a bright green sprinkling of chopped parsley to serve. The softer texture of the beans will play a nice background role with the bite of the shrimp, while that sugary sauce will bring all the ingredients together. 

Firing up the barbecue in the summertime for a good cut of steak is one of life's simple pleasures. No smoke alarms to worry about, no grease splattering all over your stove, just fresh air and the smell of a steak getting nice and smokey. And a grilled steak is the perfect main course to go with a big ol' pot of baked beans. Steak gets a nice char, beans bring the brown-sugar sweetness, and the two mix and mingle on the plate like old friends.

When choosing which grilling steaks to go with your baked beans, you can opt for eye-catching grilling cuts like big ribeyes, porterhouses, or New York strips. These cuts have lots of marbling and pockets of fat that will render over your coals and create plumes of smoke to infuse the steak with even more barbecue-flavor. Other flat, quick-cooking cuts that love the high heat of a grill are skirt steak, flat iron (which is super tender), bavette, or hanger. Visit your local butcher to ask for a good grilling cut, and either make your beans from scratch or heat them up from a can for the perfect side dish.

Sausage is an ingredient that is often combined with baked beans, whether appearing as pieces of hotdog in the canned version or as crumbles of the real deal in your grandma's recipe. It's already well-known as a great combo, but if you use a really high-quality sausage and pay attention to your plating you can make this duo stand out like never before.

The first thing to consider is the sausage you use. Sad, mystery-ingredient hot dog pieces can make baked beans feel like children's food, but if you opt for full-sized sausage made with fresh ingredients and lots of flavor, it will transform something basic into a restaurant-worthy plate. If you live close to a butcher shop, check and see if they have any fresh-made sausages like spicy Italian, maple breakfast, smoked andouille, kielbasa, chicken and apple, or chorizo verde. A sausage that's made with freshly ground meat and bold seasonings will make your beans pop.

Next, think about your plating. Smoking or grilling a sausage whole and plating it alongside your baked beans will make it stand out and feel like a complete dish rather than an afterthought. Alternatively, slicing the sausage into nice pieces will make it easier for guests to eat.

Chicken is a protein with a relatively mild flavor, which makes it perfect for pairing with sweet, spicy, or acidic ingredients that will transform it from plain to amazing. Grilled fruits, for example, can pair wonderfully with chicken, and baked beans are similar in their flavor profile. You can even combine the two and make dishes like baked beans with grilled peaches, plums, figs, and smokey grilled chicken.

If baked beans and chicken sounds a little too everyday for you, remember that it doesn't have to be boring. There are plenty of recipes for chicken, marinated, spiced, or glazed in creative ways that veer outside the ordinary. Try going a Mexican route by marinating your chicken with chipotle and puréed tomatoes, finishing with lime juice, and adding Mexican chorizo to the baked beans. Or, stick to Southwestern origins with Texas-classic cowboy caviar made with baked beans and corn and topped with grilled chicken.