Dutch Oven Cola Beans
Canned beans, summer sausage, pineapple, and a can of soda, simmered under coals for forty minutes.
- calories
- 470
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 43
- protein
- 17 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Summer sausage | 1 lb | half sliced thin, half diced; shelf-stable until cut |
|---|---|---|
| Canned pork and beans | 56 oz | |
| Canned diced tomatoes | 14 oz | drained, standing in for 2 fresh |
| Tomato paste | 1/2 cup | |
| Canned sliced mushrooms | 1 cup | drained |
| Dried minced onion | 3 tbsp | |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | or 1 tbsp granulated |
| Brown sugar | 1 cup | |
| Picante sauce | 1 cup | |
| Canned pineapple chunks | 16 oz | drained hard, the syrup will make it cloying |
| Cola | 1 can | Coke, Pepsi, or Dr Pepper |
| Oil | 1 tbsp |
Method
- Build a fire and burn it down to coals, or light about 20 briquettes. Set the 12-inch Dutch oven over them to heat.
- Add the oil and the diced summer sausage. Fry until the edges brown and fat renders out, five minutes or so.
- Stir in the dried onion, mushrooms, and garlic. Cook two minutes, until the onion rehydrates in the sausage fat.
- Dump in everything else: beans, tomatoes, paste, brown sugar, picante, pineapple, sliced sausage, and the whole can of cola. Stir once.
- Lid on. Move about half the coals to the top of the lid so heat comes from both sides.
- Simmer 30 to 40 minutes, stirring every ten so the sugar doesn't scorch on the bottom. It's done when it stops looking like soup.
This is a Scout dutch oven recipe with the fridge taken out of it. Fresh onion, peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms all became dried or canned, which means the whole meal rides in a bin and survives a hot car. Summer sausage does the pork work that bacon did, and it keeps unopened at ambient temperature.
The cola is not a gimmick. It boils down over forty minutes into a thin syrup that thickens the sauce and adds acid, so the beans get a glaze instead of staying soupy. The tomato paste holds the rest together. Drain the pineapple properly, or the extra syrup pushes the whole pot past sweet and into candy.
Packing
Everything is cans and a bag of dry seasoning, so it lives in a bin, not a cooler. Bring a church key and lid lifters. Measure the brown sugar, dried onion, and granulated garlic into one bag at home.
Variations
- Half a pound of bacon, fried crisp first, in place of the diced sausage. It needs a cooler.
- Cut the brown sugar to half a cup if the picante sauce is mild. Sweet plus sweet with nothing pushing back gets old by the second bowl.
- Diced fresh onion and two bell peppers, cooked until soft at the start, if you have cooler space.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/soda_pineapple_beans-1776.asp