Boudin and Baked Beans
September 19, 2026
An easy Friday-night meal that doesn’t require much cooking.
Friday has earned the right to be low-effort. Boudin and a can of baked beans is not a compromise dinner around here. It’s a legitimate plate, and it is on more Gulf South tables on a Friday night than anybody outside the region would guess.
It is also the dish people most often get slightly wrong, and the mistake is almost always speed.
Boudin is already cooked. The only failure mode is the casing.
Everything inside a boudin link was cooked before it went in. The pork was simmered, the rice was cooked, the trinity was sweated down, and all of it was seasoned and mixed and stuffed while still warm. There is no raw stage. There is no target temperature. You are not cooking it! You are bringing it back up to temperature without losing the container.
And the container is the whole problem. When you heat a boudin link fast, the filling expands faster than the casing can stretch, the casing splits, and the rice pours out into your pan. A boiled link is the worst case: boiling water pushes heat into the outside of the link far faster than the center can catch up, so the outer layer of filling swells hard against a casing that is simultaneously getting waterlogged and weak. That is why boiled boudin so often arrives looking like it lost a fight.
The fix is patience and dry heat. Three hundred degrees, on a sheet pan, twenty to twenty-five minutes. At that temperature the casing and the filling heat at close to the same rate, so nothing has to stretch faster than it can. You want the center at 165°F, and the casing will go tight and a little burnished rather than bursting. If you want it crisper, brush the links with a thin film of oil and give them the last five minutes at 400°F.
Air fryer works on the same principle: 350°F for about 7 minutes, turned once. The microwave does not, and no amount of technique fixes that. A microwave heats the water in the filling fastest, which is precisely the thing you are trying not to do.
Our Boudin
This trips people up constantly and it matters for how you store it.
Smoked sausage is a preserved product. It has been cured and smoked and cooked, and it will sit happily in your refrigerator for a good while. Boudin has not been through any of that. It is a fresh sausage (cooked, but not cured and not smoked) which means it has a short refrigerator life and a hard freeze date.
Ours comes frozen in three: Cajun pork, crawfish and shrimp. The seafood versions run a little wetter in the filling and the casings are tighter, so they come up to temperature a few minutes faster and they are the two most likely to split if you rush them. Give them the same 300°F and check at eighteen minutes instead of twenty-two.
On the casing question, we will say it plainly: eat it. A properly heated boudin casing is tender and it is part of the texture. The squeeze-it-out-of-the-casing move is a gas station convenience born of eating in a truck, not a rule. If someone at your table wants to squeeze, let them, but the oven method gives you a casing worth chewing.
Boudin and Baked Beans
Prep: 5 minutes · Cook: 25 minutes · Serves: 4
You’ll Need
- Lil Butcher Shoppe boudin
- 1 can baked beans
Let’s Cook
Heat the boudin until hot all the way through.
Warm the baked beans on the stove or in the microwave and serve alongside the boudin.
An easy Friday-night meal that doesn’t require much cooking.
What Else Is in the Case
Our boudin comes in Cajun pork, crawfish and shrimp, available online in custom 7 and 14 packs. It sits in the fresh sausage section with the Italian sausage and chorizo.
If you are building a Cajun plate, the gumbo, crawfish pies, stuffed crabs and Mardi Gras pasta sauce are all sold in store as well.
Tips from Behind the Counter
- 300°F, not 400°F. Low and slow is not a style choice here. It is the difference between a whole link and a pan full of rice.
- Never boil it. If you have always boiled boudin, try the oven once. It is not close.
- Do not prick the casing. People do this to “let steam out” and it just gives the filling a hole to leave through. Correct temperature means there is nothing to vent.
- 160°F in the center. Use a thermometer through the end of the link rather than through the side, so the hole is where the casing is already cut.
- Let it rest three or four minutes before cutting. The filling is loose and hot when it comes out, and it firms up enough to slice cleanly in about the time it takes to open the beans.
- Doctor the beans and nobody has to know. A spoon of mustard, a little brown sugar and some of the diced onion you did not use somewhere else turns a can into a side dish.
Ways to Change It Up
- Slice the links into rounds after heating, crisp the cut faces in a skillet, and serve them as boudin bites with a mustard dip.
- Squeeze the filling out of the casing, roll it into balls, bread it and fry it. That is boudin balls, and it is worth the extra fifteen minutes.
- Stir the beans with a little of our specialty seasoning instead of sweetening them.
- Swap the baked beans for potato salad, which is the other correct answer to what goes with boudin.
- Split a link lengthwise, lay it on Texas toast with pickles and hot sauce, and make it a sandwich.
One Stop for Friday Dinner in Hattiesburg
Family owned and operated in Hattiesburg since 1991. Hours: Monday–Tuesday and Thursday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Closed Wednesday and Sunday. Phone: 601-261-2765. Address: 1910 Broadway Drive, Hattiesburg, MS 39401. Smoked sausage ships nationwide; also on shelves across Mississippi and the Gulf South.
Want first word on specials? Text Butcher to 601-281-6633 to join the VIP list.
Shop the case · Order online · Find us on a shelf · Get in touch