Needed copy cat recipe for Bush's chili beans

Carolyn

Songster
11 Years
Apr 6, 2008
714
15
171
I want to can some dried beans and would love to know how to make the chili sauce Bush's can their red beans it. We use a lot of those beans for chili, taco salad, bean dip, etc. If you have a recipe please share. Thanks. I have tried the internet but so far did not find it.
 
Last edited:
HAW! I was just writing you to see if you'd found a good recipe for Bush's chili beans. I made a skillet dish today using chili beans and I was looking for a copy cat for them. I've dug the can out of the recycling and found out it was Luck's chili beans that I was using, not Bush's. The Luck's beans are nice, but there is BPA in the can. yuck. I am making my own from now on using the ingredient list on the can - minus the BPA.

Ingredients: Water, pinto beans, chili powder (I make my own using an old family recipe: ground ancho chili, cayenne, black pepper, cumin, coriander, oregano), cracker meal (I'll just use a bit of flour to make a roux), soybean oil (I'll use organic canola or olive oil), and clove oil (I'll just use a pinch of ground clove).
I suppose since the flour and oil are at the end of the ingredient list, this is a thickening roux that is produced prior to adding the ground cloves, and chili powder - mix that into the roux until it's fragrant, then add the pinto beans (soaked overnight) and water.

Good luck and fine eating to you!
 
I think I would skip the oil and the flour. Well, the oil may be something you want, but I would probably skip it the first try.
FYI, You shouldn't can stuff that has thickener in it, unless you use the one made specifically for canning, it is called ClearJel or something like that. According to USDA it may not heat completely through/ heats unevenly or something like that.
And I don't think you will need it. I canned some beans and ham the other day and they ended up with a thick sauce without using any flour. I figured I would thicken them when I heated them up to eat, but they don't need it.

The ingredients are listed by quantity, not in the order of use. So it is simply less clove oil than cracker meal. More water than beans.

Someone posted directions for home canned chili beans in the What are you Canning now? thread. Let me see if I can find where that is....
 
Here is the info that I was thinking of from the canning thread:

Quote:
How do you do your pinto beans? Do you soak them first? And, how full of beans do you fill it before you add water? I'm always worried about the beans soaking up the water in the jar and exploding or something during processing...

I did not soak them. I put 1-1/2 cups of beans per jar, which is about 1/3 way full in quart jars---seasoning goes in each jar
1t salt
1T minced onion
1/4t black pepper
1-1/2T chili powder
1/2t corriandar--- but DD used cayanne pepper instead
2T tomatoe sauce
top jar with boiling water-- leave 1-1/2 inch headspace
Pressure can 90 min

Ate a jar today--- so yummy!!! My sister & her kids enjoyed them too. Some of the kids thought they were too hot, I will definately put some in chili think they will add nice flavor. Next time I will do 1/4 t of cayanne pepper, so kids don't gripe.

Plan on making more this week, also goig to do some pints of black-eye peas, not sure how I am going to season those yet.
 
I did not find a copy cat recipe but I did can some by soaking and precooking beans. I made a chili sauce and cooked in down in my slow cooker with the lid off to thicken it. I think I am about ready to try that again.
 
Here is the info that I was thinking of from the canning thread:

Quote:

How do you do your pinto beans? Do you soak them first? And, how full of beans do you fill it before you add water? I'm always worried about the beans soaking up the water in the jar and exploding or something during processing...

I did not soak them. I put 1-1/2 cups of beans per jar, which is about 1/3 way full in quart jars---seasoning goes in each jar
1t salt
1T minced onion
1/4t black pepper
1-1/2T chili powder
1/2t corriandar--- but DD used cayanne pepper instead
2T tomatoe sauce
top jar with boiling water-- leave 1-1/2 inch headspace
Pressure can 90 min

Ate a jar today--- so yummy!!! My sister & her kids enjoyed them too. Some of the kids thought they were too hot, I will definately put some in chili think they will add nice flavor. Next time I will do 1/4 t of cayanne pepper, so kids don't gripe.

Plan on making more this week, also goig to do some pints of black-eye peas, not sure how I am going to season those yet.
Recipe looks great. until you hit Chili Powder .. I think you mean chili seasoning. which is wholly different.
then pressure canning for twice as longas it takes to actually cook the beans normally in a pressure cooker. probably meaning some seriously mushy beans.
Probably really good the day of canning or shortly after but shelf life would suffer. Surprised you didn't add in vinegar to retard the cooking of the beans so they stayed whole better. The acidic ingredients guarantee that the outerskin of the beans will not dissolve to stop breaking down the bean. Probably 1.5t per batch then you might have to play with the salt as vinegar cuts the salt flavor.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom