Americans: do you eat baked beans?

[Astonetogo]

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?

American pork n beans are even worse than the tinned British ones! (I do like beans just not tinned baked beans)

What??? Mashed potato & baked beans are one of life's simplest pleasures

As a Brit in the Midwest there aren't really decent sausages, mash is much less common and often has the skin of the potatoes, there are different baked beans but they aren't often fed to kids.

There are a lot of beans but they aren't always cooked in tomato sauce. White chilli is a nice bean inclusive meal for example.

I always think of baked beans as being American in that they are an approximation of this sort of thing https://www.seriouseats.com/boston-baked-beans-recipe yum

I only have baked beans occasionally. For me parsley sauce with fish fingers and chips and peas. Gravy with chicken nuggets.

@Astonetogo yes my average plate would be 1 third chips, 1 third fish fingers (no chicken nuggets thanks) and 1 third tomato sauce.

Ah I see! For me, a third would be baked beans (which are in tomato-y sauce), and I would just have a blob of ketchup the size of a large coin, to dip my chips into!

There are a good few options for tinned beans of various sorts in the US.

There are also a good few options when it comes to sausages.

'Breakfast sausages' are probably the closest to traditional British sausages, but they are mainly eaten at breakfast. You'd have them with fried or scrambled eggs, maybe bacon, maybe pancakes or waffles, and syrup. Possibly ketchup.

Other sausages include Mexican style chorizo, which crumbles on the pan. Usually served with eggs, probably wrapped in a tortilla, with salsa, for breakfast.

There is also bratwurst, both Polish and German style, normally served on a long bun with mustard or ketchup, fried onions, maybe dill relish.

Also Italian sausage, frequently served on a long bun, with fried peppers and onions and kept warm in pepper and onion juices, and often dipped in the juices or with the juices ladled over to serve.

I live in a city that runs on sausages and has its own famous style of serving hotdogs with NO KETCHUP.

People don't really serve mashed potatoes as a weekday quick meal for kids. It's more likely to be oven fries or frozen pizza. So the bangers and mash issue wouldn't arise. Sausages are more likely to go in a gumbo or rice dish - Zatarains black beans and rice or other rice and quick cook packs suggest adding some kind of smoked sausage or other meat to the mix. There are a lot of precooked sausages available - Hillshire Farm sells various smoked pork, beef, and turkey sausage where I live. You can put them on the grill or slice and saute.

Sausages are often grilled and are a popular BBQ option.

For beans:
The closest to British beans is probably Boston baked beans. These take quite a lot of cooking. You can buy them tinned.

There is red beans and rice - especially Popeyes red beans and rice, a Louisiana dish. Can be made at home but easier to buy from Popeyes and they are lush. Eaten with fried chicken.

There are refried black beans and pinto beans, usually served with Tex-Mex meals. You can get them in various styles - authentic, fat free, spiced with chili powder, cumin...

Pork and beans is baked beans with pork chunks, slightly sweet with BBQ flavour.

Black beans, cannelini beans, garbanzo beans kidney beans - would all go into either a salad or chili or curry. Basically these are unflavored beans that come in a can.

There are also dried lentils and beans.
If you wanted to have a specific style of beans.

There's a range of beans of various flavours called Bush's Sidekicks - Taco Fiesta, Southwest Zest, Rustic Tuscany, Simmering Caribbean (geddit?)..

I buy chili beans in Aldi - 'mild' chili beans that come in a tin with a sauce that's quite spicy.

I'm in the US.

A few months ago a letter was sent into Miss Manners, a syndicated columnist on manners, asking her how she should have reacted when the hosts of a dinner party served beans as part of the meal. Her feeling was that beans were a low class item never to be served at a dinner party. Ms Manners had a wonderful reply. Of course when I want to find the column I can't. Many people in the US agree with her.

I have several different types of beans in my cupboards. I actually love to make a tuna salad with equal parts white beans. The US Senate cafeteria has a special recipe bean soup it serves daily.

Where in the midwest?

Sausages are a staple in the Chicago area and there's lots of choice.

It's interesting that you say Americans consider mash a luxury. Whenever an American dinner is portrayed on the TV they are always eating mash with it. Do you mean homemade mash as opposed to instant mash? And do they really eat as much mash as it seems on TV and films? What about roast or baked spuds?

What?!?!

@ginasevern yes, made from actually peeling the potatoes versus instant.

Growing up instant mash was considered an abomination, so I’ve never gotten over that! Has to be peeled, boiled and mashed! Which many people feel is too much work every day.

Roasties as they were known to me growing up seem to be gaining in popularity here and baked potatoes are quite common.

Having said all of that, we hardly even eat spuds much any more ourselves.

@ginasevern An american youtuber that I watch was super excited to attempt a baked potato.
Apparently he follows "spud man" (I think he's called) on instagram. Beans and cheese was being talked about like a delicacy...how I laughed.

@redboots765 baked potatoes are very much the norm where I live in the US. In fact twice baked potatoes are absolutely delicious.

Mashed potatoes are more commonly served as a side dish in restaurants than at home in the US, probably due to the amount of work required to make just a few servings.

I think I've seen frozen mashed potatoes in the supermarket.

I make them for special occasions, blended with butter, sour cream and cream cheese. I then bake them in a casserole dish with cheddar cheese on top.

@Lizzieregina he's in LA...that might be why? It's usually all green smoothies et al.

I've asked the American I'm currently sitting next to, and after confirming it's the orange beans in a blue can, he's stated that he 'doesn't much care for them'. I think that means that he would rather starve.

I normally do onion gravy with sausage and mash, we only have baked beans with baked potato and cheese. And always Branston, I find Heinz tasteless and watery.

Baked beans with bangers and mash?! Hideous. I'm British and love beans, but bangers and mash go with peas and onion gravy, not beans.

Mashed potatoes are usually served as part of a special meal. If you've seen a lot of movies based around Thanksgiving or Christmas, that's where you've seen Americans eating mashed potatoes.
Baked potatoes are also an unusual choice.
Unless you had lots of time, you wouldn't serve either on a weekday.

Americans eat a lot of rice and pasta and French fries, and the health conscious eat sweet potatoes more than white potatoes. Pasta includes filled pasta like ravioli or tortellini, and also pierogies, which come stuffed with potato/cheese/onion or plum filling in my neck of the woods.

I make roast potatoes for special occasions. Friends of the DCs had never heard of them. They looked forward to mashed potatoes at Christmas. They've become a little more popular recently.

Potatoes are actually more likely to be served at breakfast - in the form of hash browns or fried potatoes. I always do fried potatoes for special occasion breakfasts. If you have breakfast in a diner you'll always find hash browns on the menu.

I grew up in Ireland and never had mashed potatoes with baked beans. They were strictly for toast.

I always assumed that British baked beans were a completely bastardised and destroyed version of something that Americans and Mexicans did waaay better. I mean, I still love baked beans. But in a dirty, trashy kind of a way.

@Lizzieregina

YY to twice baked potatoes.

I've lived in the Uk 20 yrs and have never put baked beans with sausage and mash, or chicken nuggets and chips / fries! Nor seen anyone do that! Where in the UK are you from OP?
I do have beans with a cooked breakfast though. I'm not American, but born elsewhere overseas.

There is red beans and rice

This is a traditional Louisiana dish traditionally cooked and flavored with andouille sausage. Food of the gods.

Being in the midwest, ranch dressing is almost as likely as ketchup to be the dip of choice if a dip were called for.