White navy beans slow-baked with salt pork until creamy and bathed in a sweet-savoury maple syrup sauce. A foundational side at every sugar shack, distinct from Boston baked beans because Quebec uses maple syrup, not molasses.
Fèves au lard is a foundational side at every Quebec sugar shack. 19th-century French-Canadian settlers blended European cassoulet-style pork-and-bean cooking with Indigenous-cultivated beans and local maple products. White navy beans are slow-baked with salt pork until creamy, bathed in a sweet-savoury maple syrup sauce. It is distinct from Boston baked beans specifically because Quebec uses maple syrup rather than molasses, and it is a cabane à sucre essential, eaten with everything else on the sugar-shack table.
Creamy, tender beans in a dark, sweet, maple-rich sauce studded with melting pieces of salt pork, a deep, slow-cooked flavor. Eaten with the rest of the sugar-shack plate, it is sweet, savory and the backbone of the cabane à sucre meal.
The beans are soaked overnight, then parboiled briefly to soften. They are baked long and slow in a covered pot with salt pork, onion, maple syrup, mustard and pepper, with enough water to cover. The long, slow bake (often 6 hours) lets the beans absorb the maple syrup and the salt pork melt into them, giving the creamy interior and the dark, sweet sauce. Maple syrup, not molasses, is the defining Quebec touch.
Variations
A richer version adds more maple syrup. Some cooks use a mix of maple syrup and molasses.
On the Palate
Where Fèves au Lard sits in the Canadian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
6 steps · 20 min
- 15 min
Soak 500g navy beans in water overnight; drain.
- 28 min
Parboil the beans in fresh water 30 minutes until just tender; drain, reserving the cooking water.
Watch outParboil the beans only until just tender — too soft here and they blow apart to mush over the long bake; too firm and they never turn creamy.
- 36 min
Place 200g diced salt pork in the bottom of a heavy pot; add half the beans, 1 chopped onion, then the rest of the beans.
- 45 min
Mix 200ml maple syrup, 1 tbsp mustard, 1 tsp salt and pepper; pour over the beans; add enough reserved cooking water to just cover.
- 535 min
Cover and bake at 140C for 6 hours, adding more water if the top dries out, until the beans are creamy and the sauce is dark.
Watch outBake low and slow the full 6 hours, topping up water if the top dries — that long bake is where the beans drink the maple and the sauce goes dark.
- 64 min
Rest 10 minutes and serve hot.
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