Root Beer Baked Beans
17 Comments Jun 20, 2024
Updated Jun 27, 2025
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Slow Cooker Root Beer Baked beans are flavored with root beer and also a touch of molasses. Great for barbecues and potlucks. Trust me when I say that these beans won’t last long so be ready with a backup batch.
Recipe Highlights
- They’re easy to throw together in the slow cooker and always a hit at cookouts, potlucks, or holiday gatherings.
- Adding soda to crockpot recipes add not only sweetness but a hint of unique flavor.
- If you are looking for a classic baked bean recipe, try my slow cooker baked beans.
Ingredients for Root Beer Baked Beans
- Pork and Beans: You’ll 3 cans for this recipe.
- White Onion: A small white onion, diced, adds great flavor and slight crunch.
- Bacon: Cooked, drained of grease, and sliced into bite-size pieces.
- Root Beer: A cup will add a nice tangy flavor. You can use diet root beer if needed. We also use root beer in our root beer pulled pork recipe!
- Seasonings: Yellow mustard, molasses, and barbecue sauce.
- (Full recipe is in the recipe card below the images)
How to Make Root Beer Baked Beans
- Add your beans, seasonings, and a splash of root beer to the slow cooker.
- Stir in a mix of sweet, smoky, and tangy ingredients to build flavor.
- Let it simmer low and slow until thick, rich, and ready to serve.
Cook’s Notes & Variations
Although this recipe calls for pork and beans, you can make this recipe with any flavor of canned baked beans.
Add ground beef to make this a complete meal!
Other sodas can be used instead of root beer, such as coca cola, Pepsi, or dr. pepper (see my dr. pepper baked beans recipe)!
Diet soda can be used, but only if you are used to the taste; it will have an off taste, just as the diet soda has.
You can double the recipe in a 6 quart slow cooker.
How to Serve
- These beans are delicious as is; however, you can serve them with a variety of toppings from diced onion and jalapeno to sour cream, chives, and crumbled bacon – Don’t forget a side of cornbread.
- Serve these beans with slow cooker hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecue chicken, or any meat of your choice. We often serve these along with our slow cooker chicken thighs or root beer chicken.
Featured Comment
Try making them with ginger beer instead of root beer. Really good!
– Karen
Slow Cooker Root Beer Baked Beans
How to Video
Ingredients
- 84 oz. pork and beans , (three 28-oz. cans)
- 1 small white onion, diced
- 2 Tbsp. mustard
- 2 Tbsp. molasses
- 1 cup root beer
- 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
- 8 slices bacon, sliced, cooked and drained
Instructions
- Add everything except the bacon to the slow cooker, stir. Sprinkle over the bacon on top of the beans.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 5 hours without opening the lid during the cooking time.
- Stir, serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.
More Slow Cooker Sides
Milk and Honey Corn on the Cob, Apple Pie Baked Beans, and Loaded Baked Beans are perfect for summer cookouts and holiday potlucks.
Slow Cooker Mushrooms and Onions and Land Your Man Baked Beans bring bold, savory flavors to any dinner table.
Crockpot Mac and Cheese and Lipton Onion Soup Potatoes are rich, comforting sides that pair well with just about any main dish.
The flavor was great but after using two 28-oz cans of UNDRAINED Bushes baked beans, the beans were wayyy too soupy. I had to use a slotted spoon to serve them. I wondered when I started making the recipe whether they should be drained since the recipe didn’t specify. Within the comments/questions below the recipe I found that someone else had asked, and the response was that they were not drained. In my opinion, that is a mistake. Remember, you’re adding 8 ounces of rootbeer as well! I drained off much of the liquid from the remaining beans and reheated the next day and they were so much better.
I also went back to the recipe and watched the video to see if I’d missed anything. Perhaps pork and beans have less fluid than baked beans to start with? Also, it appeared that the whole can of root beer wasn’t poured in, but maybe that was just to move the video along.
Anyway, I will definitely make again, alsong with a reminder to myself to drain the beans first!
TIP… 1 Tlb. baking soda in Fresh Beans after they are heated through will release the “toots” gases in the beans, rinse well, cover with water and continue with your favorite recipe
There was no instruction book with my cooker, only the recipe book. Can I have one sent to me
A good treak for any bean recipe. Soak them over night with 1 tablespoon of baking soda. Rince them in the morning then boil them at low (mijoter in french) then use your favorite recipe and cook them in a crock pot or in your oven. I jst did that and thry are fabulous and tender. Not tesponsible for the side effects.
I put the baking soda in the beans after they are heated through to release the “toots”, rinse and cover with water and continue with your favorite recipe
Looks like a great recipe! Do you drain the beans before you put them in the cooker?
Also, in answer to Patricia above, beans in the slow cooker are super easy! I make my own all the time (no real recipe, lol) so I can control the salt. Usually I sort through the beans, rinse them, and put them in a pot with a lot of water. Bring to a boil and turn off heat. let soak 2 hrs or even over-night. Then rinse beans, put in cooker with whatever you want to flavor them with – I used diced onion and celery, pepper, and a little salt. Cook on high 6 hours or until tender. I often make a big pot, then freeze them in quart freezer bags in 2 cup batches (about the same as a can of beans)
No, I do not drain the beans. Thank you for your recipe!
Do you have a recipe for home made beans. From scratch.
I do not, sorry!
Can you use a different soda other than root beer?
Yes, dr. pepper or cola would work great too.
What BBQ sauce do you recommend?
For this recipe I used barbecue Pete’s fair sauce. It’s in a glass bottle. I found it at Fred Meyer (Kroger)
Use other bean, like pintos, cannelli, or black beans. There you have control.
The “baked” beans sound delicious. Do you have any suggestions for making them less salty? Maybe a recipe for slow cooking the beans myself instead of using canned?