Roosevelt Baked Beans with Ground Beef and Bacon
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These cowboy baked beans with ground beef and bacon, aka Roosevelt Beans, are seriously the best baked beans you’ll ever eat!! It’s an adapted version of the Roosevelt Baked Bean recipe from Yellowstone National Park’s Old West Dinner Cookout. It just might be the last baked bean casserole recipe you’ll ever need.
Roosevelt baked beans were one of the sides that we ate during the Old West Cookout at Roosevelt Lodge. They were SO delicious! How weird is it that beans are one of my most memorable foods?! I’ve always been a big baked bean fan. I’m sure that you’re thinking up some good fart jokes right about now.
Roosevelt Baked Beans with Ground Beef and Bacon Is More Like A Baked Bean Casserole
These baked beans aren’t your typical baked bean recipe. They are filled with 2 kinds of tasty meats (love the protein boost!), perfectly seasoned, and comprised of 4 different bean varieties. One of the MVPs here is the butter bean. Their creamy texture and rich, buttery flavor take these beans to the next level. Look for them in the canned bean aisle, sometimes labeled as large lima beans. Can’t find them? Cannellini beans or Great Northern beans are your best swaps, though the butter beans are truly worth seeking out. These beans are hearty; they could easily be a stand-alone meal with a good garden salad. I don’t usually go back for seconds, but I couldn’t help myself and filled my plate twice. They were so good!! This is going to be my new go-to bean recipe.
The only changes that I made to the original recipe were to use lean ground beef and less bacon. Here’s the thing: 6 pieces of bacon crumbled still pack a flavor punch with less fat.
What’s In Roosevelt Baked Beans?
Here’s what goes into this recipe: lean ground beef, bacon, and four types of canned beans, including kidney, pinto, black, and butter beans, all seasoned and slow-baked into a rich, hearty dish. Scroll down for the full recipe, or keep reading for the backstory behind this legendary Yellowstone recipe!
Yellowstone National Park Should Be On Your Vacation Bucket List
I had completely intended to share our epic summer vacation with you sooner, but you know…life happened, and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. It was, hands-down, the best family vacation that we’ve taken so far. We flew into Salt Lake City and spent the night in Ogden, about forty miles north of the city. From there, we made our way up to Jackson, WY, where we spent the next 3 nights. Then, we made our way to Yellowstone National Park and stayed in one of the cabins at Old Faithful’s Snow Lodge for the remainder of our trip.
I’m going to share more details about our vacation in a separate blog post about Yellowstone travel tips later this week. There is just way too much awesomeness to tackle in one post. I want to share some of our favorite spots, along with helpful travel tips on places to dine, stay, and visit. As I said before, it was an incredible vacation for our family, and I highly recommend adding this area to your bucket list.
Now onto the backstory of this tasty bean goodness…
We booked the Roosevelt Old West Dinner Cookout for the last night of our stay in Yellowstone. This popular Yellowstone activity was recommended by a good friend, and it books up fast, so I made the reservations months in advance.
When you arrive at Roosevelt Stables, they gather everyone in a large group and tell a few fun stories about Yellowstone’s cowboy history. Then they load us into groups into a horse-drawn carriage to travel to a “secret location” in the park for the cookout.
Ready to roll…
This scenery could be a postcard. It was a beautiful ride. The cookout guides, a.k.a “wranglers,” were a lot of fun, telling us jokes and entertaining stories on the way to dinner. We saw plenty of wildlife, including bison, pronghorn, gophers, and a black bear right outside of Roosevelt Lodge before we arrived at the stables.
When we arrived at the cookout site, they had a huge buffet-style spread waiting for us.
We even got to enjoy some classic cowboy tunes. One of the cute guests was eager to join in on the fun. 🙂
Part of the Old West Dinner experience is trying out authentic cowboy coffee. It’s seriously strong and thick and packs a big flavor punch if you like a strong cup of joe. Cowboy coffee is made with an extraction method called “decoction”, which is simply commingling coffee grounds, preferably freshly ground, with boiling water. You add the coffee grounds (and they use a LOT of coffee grounds) to cold water in a kettle and heat it over a hot fire. They even joke that it’s so strong, it could float a horseshoe. This stuff really puts Starbucks to shame.
The cowboys cooked our steaks to order. I believe that they had black bean burgers for non-meat eaters, but I was all for the beef.
Here’s my plate with a very generous helping. That’s enough steak for 2 meals for me! As you can see, they aren’t skimpy with the portions. They’ll even let you go back for more if you’re actually still hungry.
After dinner, they share a fun story around the campfire before loading back up to head back. This was a memorable family experience. I highly recommend this dinner outing if you are planning a visit to the park. They also offer the option of riding horseback instead of the wagon ride. We rode horses through the Grand Tetons earlier in the week, so we opted for the wagons instead.
Lauren wanted to pet the horses, and this guy kept trying to lick my ear.
I’ll be sharing more scenic pics and fun travel tips this week. Stay tuned…I hope that you enjoy these Roosevelt Baked Beans with ground beef & bacon as much as we did!
Recipe FAQs
This recipe uses four types of canned beans: kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, and butter beans. The butter beans are especially worth seeking out for their creamy texture and rich flavor, but cannellini or Great Northern beans make a great swap if needed.
Yes! These cowboy baked beans actually taste even better the next day once the flavors have had time to meld. Make them a day ahead, store covered in the refrigerator, and reheat on the stovetop or in the oven.
Absolutely. Brown the ground beef and bacon first, then combine everything in your slow cooker and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours or high for 2 to 3 hours. It’s a great hands-off option for feeding a crowd.
These are hearty enough to serve as a main dish with a simple garden salad. They also make a great side alongside grilled chicken, burgers, or steaks, which feels pretty fitting given their cowboy cookout origins!
Roosevelt Baked Beans with Ground Beef and Bacon
Ingredients
- 1 lb lean ground beef I used 92% lean
- 6 slices bacon diced into 1" pieces
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 16 oz can pork and beans
- 15 oz can kidney beans
- 15 oz can lima beans
- 15 oz can butter beans *can swap with great northern beans or cannellini beans (use butter beans if you can find them)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp spicy brown mustard or yellow mustard
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
- *optional: 1 tsp hot sauce (red (traditional) or green (mild) Tabasco) for a little heat
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Heat a Dutch oven (or large oven-proof skillet) over medium heat and add ground beef and diced bacon. Cook until the ground beef is no longer pink. Add the onions and sauté until softened.
- Drain any grease and add the beef mixture back to the pot.
- Add the canned beans and remaining ingredients to the pot. Stir well to combine.
- Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour.
Nutrition
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I had Roosevelt beans tonight and they were so delicious and hearty. The bacon and ground beef are such a great addition!
We had these beans at the cookout a few years ago and loved them. I have made them for bbqs and they were a hit. It does make a big casserole, so I was wondering if they can be frozen?
Hi Kate! I’m so glad that you love them! Yes, you can freeze them, just use a freezer-safe container and leave some room at the top so the liquid in the baked beans has room for expansion as it freezes.
Is the sugar necessary? I have never made baked beans before and I don’t normally like foods mixing sweet and savory very much. I do love beans and the other ingredients.
Not at all, Gunther. Feel free to leave it out.
This looks SO good and I definitely want to try cooking it this week, as I absolutely love baked beans too. I just got some fresh butter beans from a local farm this week, do you think I could sub those in place of the canned? Can’t wait to try it! 🙂
Hi Abby! Yes, definitely go for the fresh beans! Yum! Just prepare them first and add them cooked. 🙂
I love your pictures from your trip Amee! Looks like you had so much fun! And those beans! Amen! I am making those for sure!!!!
Thank you so much Sara! I hope you are doing well! We had a blast!!
Can’t wait to try this recipe out! Looks so yummy and pretty easy to prepare! your trip looks awesome – great idea for my two boys! Thanks Amee!
Thank Kim! You definitely need to go, such a great experience for the whole family!
These beans look amazing & so does your family trip! We’re heading home from Yosemite today & I hope to take my kids to Yellowstone soon-National Parks are the best 🙂 Looking forward to more pictures from your trip!
Thank you EA! I have Yosemite on my bucket list, so I’d love to get your tips and recommendations!