I love baked beans. As a side dish. I never thought about making a soup out of them. Well, lemme tell ya! Add some smoked sausage and give it a few hours in the slow cooker and you’ve got the best slow cooker hearty sausage and beans soup around. This is the kinda soup winter is afraid of. After a bowl of this I’m ready to shovel snow, rake leaves, chop firewood… you name it!
A Flavor-Packed Soup
There’s just the right amount of ‘juice’ in this slow cooker hearty sausage and beans soup to make it stand out from being just baked beans. The broth is fantastic. I’d drink it out of the bowl. It’s packed with flavor, despite how simple this dish is to make.
Browning the sausage before adding it to the slow cooker is optional. Personally, I want a little ‘char’, a little bite, to my sausage. The onions don’t really need to be partially cooked ahead of adding them to the pot either. Onions take forever in a slow cooker and often they don’t get cooked through enough. So I let them spend a little time in a hot skillet beforehand to soften up a bit.
Slow Cooker Hearty Sausage and Beans Soup
Ingredients
- vegetable oil a splash, for browning the sausage
- 1 pound smoked sausage sliced
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 3 slices bacon fully cooked, chopped
- 2 31 ounce pork and beans
- 6 ounces tomato paste
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
Instructions
- Heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the sliced sausage. Brown on all sides, stirring. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Transfer to the slow cooker.
- Add the onion and saute for 3-5 minutes to just soften. Transfer to the slow cooker.
- Add the remaining ingredients to the slow cooker and stir.
- Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are approximate.
