Slow Made Beans of Goodness

This is not a recipe you can start and have ready in fifteen minutes.  Sorry folks.  You need to plan DAYS in advance for this one, but it's well worth it.  You can shorten the time from prep to plate by using canned beans and that's perfectly okay.

What you'll need:
1 lb. bag of navy beans or 2 cans
1 lb. of bacon, diced small (I like peppered bacon)
1 big onion, diced small
Large pinch crushed red pepper flakes
4 garlic cloves, smashed and finely chopped
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 bottles of your favorite BBQ sauce (or whatever is on sale!) 
1 1/2 cups reserved bean liquid

These are beans.  Beans soaking. 
In a bowl.  Very exciting

First things first: two days (yes, TWO WHOLE DAYS) before you want to serve this, soak your beans in cold water.  If you're using cans, clearly, you can wait, but only one day.  You want to be able to refrigerate the whole shebang overnight before you serve it.  The wait is worthwhile.

Cooked, drained beans. Also very exciting.

Drain the beans and put them in a pot with 8 cups of water.  Add a little salt and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the beans are tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from the heat and let sit for 5 minutes.  Drain the beans and set aside. Reserve the cooking liquid.

I dice the bacon while it's frozen.  It's easier.
This is peppered bacon.  I love it.

Brown your bacon until it's really crisp.  Use whatever cooking vessel makes you happy.  I like to do it in a pot that's just like me:  thick bottomed.  I use a pot instead of a skillet to make cleaning my stove easier later on.  The bacon is going to get limp in the sauce but we can at least start with crispy bacon, right?  Remove the browned bacon using a slotted spoon to a plate lined with a paper towel or two. 

You could just stop here and eat this
pretty, pretty bacon.

Lower your heat if you have it anywhere higher than medium.  Now throw your diced onions, pepper flakes and garlic right into that bacon fat.  Think for a second about your arteries and then forget about it.  Stir those aromatics around until they get good and soft and limp and start to brown just a little

Dump your beans, 2/3 of the bacon, your softened aromatics and everything else into your crock.  Look at it.  Is the sauce totally covering your beans.  Is it too thick already?  Add plain cold water until you can stir it really easily.  Stir it around to combine but be careful not to break up your beans. Taste and season with salt, if needed.

Here's what it looks like at the beginning of the process. 
A little wet and the beans are still very white.
That will all change.  I promise!

I like to make this in my slow cooker.  I have one of those neat ones where the crock is removeable.  You can also just do it in the oven.

I'm going to set my slow cooker on low and just let the beans go.  It's important to note that when you're using the slow cooker, don't keep lifting the lid to look at what's inside.  You let all the heat out by doing that!

If you're going to do this in the oven, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake until the beans are nice and thick, uncovered, for 2 hours. Check on it every so often to make sure all of the liquid hasn't evaporated.  If it's getting a little dry, you can add water. 

Turn off your slow cooker after a few hours.  I'm going to say at least 3 but with a slow cooker, you could let them go for 6 or 8 hours.   If you're baking it, remove your crock (or pan or dutch oven or whatever!)  from the oven and allow to cool.

Once completely cool, put the whole crock into the fridge and store overnight.  By sitting in the fridge all the fat that's in the beans from the bacon is going to rise to the top.  You can spoon it off and throw it away or throw caution to the wind and just stir it back in when you reheat the beans for service. 

Surprisingly, I actually prefer to remove the fat.

I put the crock back in my slow cooker a couple of hours before I want to serve these.  Top with that reserved bacon (if you haven't eaten it!) and enjoy.