Chinese baked beans with minced pork
This might not sound Chinese but this appeared regularly in our Chinese household when I was little.
You will always find tins of baked beans in our larder at home. We have been known to just have heated up a tin of baked beans as a snack. I guess this is one of the few good things leftover from the days that we were a colony.
Cooking with baked beans
A recent conversation on Bluesky with my mates, @snighda and @salutethepig
They were talking about an Indian version of baked beans with masala spices. I also learnt to make chakalaka from a South African chef who runs a restaurant in one of the townships in Capetown. This is a condiment also made with baked beans. Sounds weird but also quite delicious.
Economical Chinese Home Cooking
For homecooked dinners, my Hokkien grandma would make this pimped up baked beans dish for dinner. It is quite simple, quick to cook and most Malaysian Chinese families will have a version of this.
Its simple, unsophisticated but so delicious and comforting. Best of all, you don’t have to use THAT brand of baked beans. Any generic supermarket brand will do as you will be adding your own seasonings to this dish. This is also the kind of frugal homecooking dishes that stretches a tiny bit of meat into a bigger, more substantial dish.
You can pimp it up anyway you want using whatever you have to hand. The recipe below is our family version. This minced pork and baked bean dish is very easy for even beginners to cook. You really can’t get it wrong.
Use a little bit of minced pork (or a lot if you prefer more meat to beans) and fry on medium high heat until it changes colour, cooked 90%. This takes mere minutes.
Add some chopped garlic, stir fry for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Then add the tin of beans. You can scale this up with double the amout of beans if you need to feed more people.
Season with soy sauce, dark soy sauce (because Hokkien).
The combination of sweet, savoury and the familiar flavour of baked beans is just magical. For something so humble, you don’t really need to adorn it with any fancy words. For grown ups, you can add a spoonful of Chiu Chow chilli oil to spice it up.
Serve this dish hot as part of a multi dish meal. Add a stir fried green leafy veg, a Chinese soup and a bowl of rice. All done in 30 minutes.
- Here are some other dishes that you can make to complete the meal:
- stir fried cabbage
- Stir Fried green beans
- Chinese hot lettuce
Chinese baked beans with minced pork
Ingredients
- 100 g minced pork substitute with minced chicken or turkey
- 1 can of baked beans
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp MSG
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
Instructions
- Use a little bit of minced pork (or a lot if you prefer more meat to beans) and fry on medium high heat until it changes colour, cooked 90%. This takes mere minutes.
- Add some chopped garlic, stir fry for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Then add the tin of beans. You can scale this up with double the amout of beans if you need to feed more people.
- Season with soy sauce, dark soy sauce, some white pepper and a pinch of MSG. Adjust the seasoning to your own liking.
- Serve this dish hot as part of a multi dish meal. Add a stir fried green leafy veg, a Chinese soup and a bowl of rice.
Notes
Let me know if you give this a go and tag me on Instagram, Threads or Bluesky if you do. Use #ECXCooks so that I can find your posts to repost.
