Give Canned Baked Beans A Major Flavor Boost With One Umami Ingredient

It doesn't matter if you're serving them alongside barbecue or burgers or if they're the centerpiece of your favorite vegetarian dish, baked beans are pretty incredible. They're great when they're made from scratch, but getting them right can take hours. Fortunately, there are a ton of varieties of canned baked beans out there, and they can be an ideal solution if you don't have time for your favorite 12-hour roasted baked beans. Sure, they might not be the same, but we have a pro tip for making a simple addition to those canned beans that will make them taste homemade.

Best of all? It's something that you probably already have on hand, and that's soy sauce. Adding just a dash of soy sauce will bring a depth of flavor that you might find lacking in many brands of canned beans, which can tend to be a bit one-dimensional.

There is a word of caution here, though. It's very easy to overdo it with soy sauce and end up with something unbearably salty instead of bursting with flavor. With that in mind, let's talk about just how to use this versatile ingredient to get the most out of your canned baked beans.

Soy sauce is an ingredient in many scratch-made baked bean recipes, and the key here is moderation. Keep in mind that soy sauce is incredibly salty, and here's some food for thought: Three tablespoons contain all of the salt you should be getting in an entire day, and it's definitely possible to get too much of this good thing. (It's even possible to suffer life-threatening consequences of using too much, as the high salt content can upset the delicate water-sodium balance of your body.) 

Keep in mind that most baked bean recipes will call for only a tablespoon or so of soy sauce, and there's a good chance that the can you're trying to dress up is much smaller than the large batch you might make from scratch. It's important, then, to start small: Add just a dash and taste it. You can always add a bit more.

But what if you slip and add too much? There might not be a need to throw away the whole project, as a slight overpour can be fixed in a few ways. There's always the possibility of grabbing another can and just making an extra-big batch — baked beans never go to waste, after all — but you could also add some sugar, honey, or rice wine (or cider) vinegar to counteract some of the saltiness. Those can all work particularly well, because they're ingredients in some baked beans to begin with.

Soy sauce has been around for a long time, and it's not all the same. Head to Japan, and you'll find that they have somewhere around 1,200 breweries that are whipping up their own unique versions of soy sauce. Different brands have different consistencies, characteristics, and flavors, but they all have something in common: umami.

Umami translates to "delicious savory taste," and that pretty much sums up what's going on here. Adding soy sauce to something like your canned baked beans works to not only add depth to savory flavors, but it also tones down sweetness. That's a big deal: Overpowering sweetness is one of the major complaints about canned baked beans, and a dash of soy sauce will go a long way into softening that while bringing out the savory and salty flavors.

This is also a great way to experiment with different types of soy sauce. Use light or dark soy, or opt for something like the sweet soy sauce called amakuchi. Variety is, after all, the spice of life! This is just one of many delicious ways to use soy sauce. From adding it to baked beans to a myriad of sauces, glazes, dips, marinades, and gravies, experimenting with soy sauce can lead you to discover all new uses for this incredible ingredient.