With Memorial Day around the corner, we're starting to think about picnics and barbecues. Call us crazy, but one of our favorites is a ubiquitous side dish that others may not give a second thought: baked beans.

We've rounded up some recipes that are sure to elevate your next batch, whether you start from scratch or even dress up some canned beans.

• Bon Appétit's Hot and Smokey Baked Beans features bacon, dark beer and chipotle chilies. Smitten Kitchen adapts the recipe and skips the bacon.
• The Kitchen Sink starts with dried Great Northerns and ends up with Maple Baked Beans.
• Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks incorporates Lindeman's Frambois Lambic beer, dried berries and smoked paprika into her Berry Beer Baked Beans.
• Want to go heavier on the meat, try The Amateur Gourmet's version of Baked Red Kidney Beans with Chorizo.
• No time for dried beans? Try Melissa Clark's Fake Baked Beans, via The Wednesday Chef.
• Serious Eats also makes great use of canned beans with 17th Street’s Tangy Pit Beans.
• Can't pick a favorite bean? How about Simply Recipe's Three-Bean Baked Beans.

Related: Good Question: Best Meals to Cook On Camping Trips?

(Images: Clockwise from left, The Kitchen Sink, Steve Cohen/Epicurious, Smitten Kitchen)