Does anyone else add baked beans to cottage pie mince?

[7238SM]

I've always made cottage pie by adding a tin of baked beans into the beef mince mix. I was looking through recipes recently and none mentioned baked beans, so I now feel like some sort of heathen. What do you include? 😬

Um no, I will leave that comment there

But i love them on their own

And if anyone uses dried lentils, do you need to do anything with them first or just mix them in dry?
( obviously I am not a great cook 🙂)

I’m not, i was the poor one. We did it for everything. Days we didn’t have meat it was beans!

Dry red lentils, but needs a long cook.
Tinned brown lentils are easier in that respect. Already cooked

In the past I have. Nothing wrong with that depending on what flavour profile you want

Beans can bulk out mince dishes very nicely and if you havent got plain ones like butter bean or cannelleni, baked beans will do very nicely.

No but I’ve added puy lentils and chopped mushrooms to increase protein and veggies and decrease cost

You are a heathen

No, never thought of doing that but I love the idea 🙌🏻 going to try it! Thanks for the idea OP 👍

Not baked beans, but I add cannelloni beans or haricot beans, green lentils or something to bulk it out.

you do you though if you like it. :)

Thank you!

A handful of oats works too. We call it seventies mince in our house.
Now, who adds curry powder and sultanas to rice?

Oh that would be nice

And mix 'curried' rice up with some tuna, spring onion and a boiled egg for 'kedgeree'. Or you could use some pre bought smoked mackerel although I suspect the smoked haddock would be cheaper

No! But I did add baked beans to chilli once because I didn’t have red kidney beans and it was very nice, so maybe you’re on to something 😂

Never added BB but like the idea of padding out the meat with something more savoury than root veg which makes the end dish too sweet. I add variously Puy lentils (which are stupidly expensive now), red lentils, pot barley, haricot beans, smashed chickpeas.

Hell no , I can't stand baked beans, I wouldn't have them in the house at all but my DH likes them so there's always some in the cupboard just in case he wants any

I don't but my mother always did.
Maybe it was a 70s thing.

No, (unless they are the No Added Sugar variety) they are far too sweet and would make the whole dish taste sweet. When it should be savoury.
Actually I wouldn’t even put the NAS ones into the dish but might serve alongside. Another, different, vegetable like peas or carrots would still be preferable.

No, but I always have baked beans alongside cottage/shepherds pie

Oh, we used to do that when we used to use a packet chilli mix!

No but DH’s late mum always did apparently

You're not a heathen! I often add chickpeas or lentils to stretch beef mince and add extra fibre - I wouldn't add baked beans because I personally don't like the sauce but a tin of haricot or cannellini beans would work brilliantly.

I use black eyed beans. Beans are
great texture-wise with mince! I wouldn’t
want the sweet tomatoey flavour of baked beans tho.