Americans: do you eat baked beans?

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And if you don’t, what do you give your children when you cook something simple like sausage and mash, or chicken nuggets and chips / fries? Aren’t they a bit dry without the beans?

I am Mexican-American and I have an English husband and half-English kids so we eat beans of all kinds in my house.

When we still lived in England, we had baked beans with simple English/British dishes. We have lived in the US for a while now and we hardly eat baked beans. If we do, it's occasionally in a baked potato and we don't eat sausages and mash here in Texas.

We tend to eat more Mexican food so pinto, black and refried beans are always an accompaniment along with tomato rice with corn and peas or a sopa which is a tomato soup with small pasta noodles or shapes.

If we have more American foods, we have green beans, Lima beans, Texas baked beans and various vegetables.

Just an FYI: Mexican beans aren't dry at all. Charro Beans are served in a simple savory broth with onions, tomatoes, cilantro and some jalapeño. Borracho beans have the above with beer to give it a different flavor. Texas baked beans are similar to British baked beans but have less tomato but a flavor more like barbecue sauce.

I am English and don’t eat baked beans

Sausage and mash I do onion gravy sometimes but it’s not dry anyway. Fish fingers tartar sauce / spinach

Yes but we tend to eat them as part of a bbq. I was baffled to find baked beans on the breakfast menu when I first moved to England.

Hopefully the photo attaches of the baked beans on offer at my local grocery store in Texas. $3.78 or £2.98 is very expensive for a can of beans. I can definitely do without!!

I’m British and we don’t eat beans. I wouldn’t put beans with chicken nuggets and chips! That’s what ketchup is for.

I'm not American but I don't eat beans. Just don't like them.
But sausage and my mash - I make mash all creamy with butter and cheese so not it's not dry.
Anything with chips will be accompanied by tomato sauce (ketchup) so no beans needed.
🙂

I don’t get this thing with American people thinking British people love beans. We never have them with anything personally and I definitely wouldn’t eat them on toast. 😂

Cuisines who don’t have baked beans don’t know what they’re missing!
Baked beans are an excellent source of 2nd class protein and fibre.
A truly nutritious and filling dish for all of us.
Long live the British Baked Bean!

@LilBus I don't like beans but I like eating the pasta shapes on toast. The ones aimed at kids in the shape of whatever character is popular (Peppa Pig, Thomas the Tank etc).
I call it having "shapes on toast" and only about 4 people in my life know what that means when I say what I am having for tea 😂
They would never be eaten as an side to things with chips 🙂

The American Heinz beans are very different. The sauce is sweeter and translucent like a syrup.

I'm an American and we don't eat baked beans or sausages and mashed potatoes.

The kids would have ketchup with their chicken nuggets and French fries.

Why do you ask Americans this as if it's a given British people all eat baked beans. No way would baked beans be going anywhere near my sausage and mash.

American Southerners do eat baked beans but they're a bit different from the British ones as they're smoky barbecue flavour https://littlespicejar.com/southern-baked-beans/ They're not as ubiquitous as the British ones, though.

American beans are gagworthy. They have this lump of fat in the middle of the tin.

When we lived in the USA, we made our own baked beans. It's really not that hard.

True. I'm a Southerner, and we mainly eat baked beans as described above with barbecue. And by barbecue, I don't mean the British and (sometimes Yankee) notion of grilling something outside. Barbecue in my neck of the woods is a whole hog (or parts thereof) cooked all night low and slow over a wood fire, preferably in a hole in the ground. The flavor is from the smoke, not the sauce.

We don't have sausages for lunch or dinner, only breakfast, and we don't eat beans for breakfast. Besides barbecue, we do sometimes have baked beans with hamburgers and hotdogs (I realize a hotdog is technically a sausage). For example, baked beans are almost always part of a Fourth of July celebration where burgers and dogs feature heavily.

I've never had a meal in the US where baked beans and mashed potatoes were served together.

Beans do not ever go with sausage and mash! 🤢

I live in the US now and DH and I will have baked beans occasionally, but my kids wouldn’t ever eat them.

They are typically served for bbqs here.

The quick, not so healthy, meals for kids here might be a hot dog, chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, PB&J, a cheese/bean quesadilla.

Sausages are not the same (as good) as over there, so no sausage and mash. Also proper mash is considered quite a luxury and not a regular weekday dish. People used to be shocked when I said I’d make it several times a week.

Oh and growing up in the UK/Ireland, beans were definitely regular with sausage and mash!

British and baked beans repulse me. Kids won't touch them either.

Mash potatoes and beans don't belong in the same postcode, never mind on the same plate.

elp30, you could get Bush's baked beans or similar for a lot less I suspect. I buy Heinz or Bachelors in the international section because they aren't as sweet as the canned baked beans in the regular aisles. We rarely have them.

As Lizzieregina described, quick kid-friendly dinners are different. A lot of people don't cook potatoes regularly - more pasta and rice. My quick unhealthy dinner for the kids years ago was mac and cheese, hotdogs or chicken nuggets, and broccoli.

As well as the south, Boston has a traditional baked bean dish too - navy beans or white beans in a sauce - often made for July 4th bbqs.

I am astounded by the number of people who do not eat baked beans with mashed potato! You don’t know what you’re missing! Sausage beans and mash is food of the gods 😁

I see the point about ketchup with nuggets / fish fingers, do you have quite a lot of ketchup on the plate, then?

I’m not assuming all us brits like baked beans, but I think it’s fair to say most of us do, or at least more of us do than in any other country! I love ‘em, either with oven food as described above, with a full breakfast or on a jacket potato / with chips and cheese 😋😋

I'm American and never had baked beans growing up.

I'm a Brit and I love cold baked beans straight from the tin...has to be Branston though, Heinz are horrible now

Huge generalization here, but in my part of the Southern US, potatoes are not the usual go-to starch. That would be rice.

If we eat potatoes, it's more likely fries with a burger. I almost never had mashed potatoes growing up, and I have never cooked them. DH sometimes gets them in a restaurant with meatloaf, but then again, he is a Yankee, bless his heart.

Can't stand baked beans and I'm British - we have green vegetables with our dinners and gravy where appropriate. Don't eat chips at home very much but like mayo on them.