This fresh and colorful Cowboy Caviar recipe combines two types of beans, delicious summer vegetables, and a sweet and tangy lime vinaigrette dressing to make a bold and versatile dish that you’ll find yourself making all summer long. It’s a great chip dip, party appetizer, taco topper, salad add-on, or just a simple side dish. Plus, Cowboy Caviar holds up great in the fridge, so it has become my go-to healthy meal prep. I literally never get tired of it!
What is Cowboy Caviar?
Cowboy Caviar, sometimes called Texas Caviar or Mexican Caviar, is like a cross between a bean salad and a fresh salsa. It combines two types of beans, black beans and black-eyed peas, with a colorful medley of fresh vegetables and a tangy balsamic-lime vinaigrette. It can be served as a side dish, or a garnish for any number of foods like tacos, salads, grilled meats, and more.
Ingredients for Cowboy Caviar
Cowboy caviar combines a medley of super fresh, colorful, and vibrant ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need to make this super fresh bean salad:
- Beans: We use a combination of black beans and black-eyed peas for maximum color. You can substitute pinto beans for the black-eyed peas if needed.
- Peppers: A mix of bell pepper and jalapeño add a deliciously fresh crunch to the salad. You can use any color bell pepper, yellow or orange add the most color to the cowboy caviar.
- Onion: Red onion gives the salad a nice spicy bite, more color, and even more crunch! You can substitute with green onion if you need a milder flavor.
- Cilantro: A handful of fresh cilantro adds even more color to this bold mix and a breath of fresh green flavor. If you can’t eat cilantro, I suggest adding a little green onion.
- Dressing: We make our own lime vinaigrette for this Cowboy Caviar recipe using olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime, cumin, chili powder, salt, and sugar. But, if you’re in a rush, this salad also tastes great using bottled Italian dressing!
Where Do You Find Black-Eyed Peas?
Because black-eyed peas are technically a “pea” (vegetable) they’re sometimes found with the canned vegetables rather than the beans. You can also often find them in the freezer aisle, although you’ll want to boil those black-eyed peas first, according to the cooking instructions on the package. And if you can’t find black-eyed peas, you can substitute pinto beans or navy beans.
Cowboy Caviar Variations
This Cowboy Caviar recipe is extremely versatile and there are tons of other ingredients you can add to make it your own. Here are some other ingredients you can add:
- Avocado for a creamy finish
- A dash or two of hot sauce to make it extra spicy
- Skip the jalapeño to make a mild cowboy caviar
- Use green onion in place of the red onion to make it more mild, or in place of the cilantro if cilantro isn’t your thing!
- Sweet corn adds more color and texture to the mix and can be a great low-cost substitution for yellow bell pepper
- Fresh garlic adds a savory-spicy kick!
- Add canned hominy (drained) for more color and texture
- Use garbanzo beans in place of any of the beans
How Long Does it Last?
Well, if you don’t eat it all in one sitting (it can happen!), this Cowboy Caviar recipe holds up extremely well in the refrigerator and will stay good in the refrigerator for about 4-5 days. While the vegetables will let off a little water, most of the ingredients are very sturdy. Just be sure to stir the salad before serving to redistribute the dressing. This salad will probably not freeze well, due to the fresh herbs and vegetables.
How to Serve Cowboy Caviar
There are SO many ways to eat Cowboy Caviar that you’ll probably find yourself adding it to everything you eat. But here are a few ideas anyway:
- Serve it as a side dish with dinner
- Use as a chunky dip for tortilla chips
- Use it as a topping for tacos
- Stuff it into a burrito or as part of a burrito bowl
- Sprinkle a spoonful or two over a green salad
- Add it on top of scrambled eggs
- Use it as a quesadilla filling
…and so much more. If you have a favorite way to eat your Cowboy Caviar, feel free to share it with the rest of us in the comments below!
Cowboy Caviar
Servings 10 (1/2 cup each)Ingredients
DRESSING*
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 fresh lime (2 Tbsp juice) ($0.33)
- 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp chili powder** ($0.05)
- 1 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1/2 tsp sugar ($0.02)
Salad
- 1 15oz. can black beans ($0.89 )
- 1 15oz. can black eyed peas ($1.09)
- 1 bell pepper (any color) ($1.50)
- 2 Roma tomatoes ($0.86)
- 1 jalapeño ($0.12)
- 1/4 red onion ($0.20)
- 1/4 bunch fresh cilantro ($0.20)
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, 2 Tbsp of juice from the lime, balsamic vinegar, chili powder, cumin, salt, and sugar.
- Rinse and drain both cans of beans in a colander. Once well drained, transfer them to a large bowl.
- Finely dice the bell pepper, tomatoes, jalapeño, and red onion. Try to dice the vegetables into pieces that are roughly the same size as the beans. For a less spicy salad, scrape the seeds out of the jalapeño before dicing. Roughly chop the cilantro.
- Add the chopped vegetables to the bowl with the beans.
- Pour the dressing over the salad, then stir until everything is well coated. Serve immediately, or refrigerate until ready to eat.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Video
How to Make Cowboy Caviar – Step by Step Photos
Make the dressing first so the flavors have a few minutes to blend. Whisk together 2 Tbsp olive oil, 2 Tbsp lime juice, ½ Tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp cumin, ½ tsp chili powder, ½ tsp sugar, and ½ tsp salt.
Rinse and drain one 15oz. can of black beans and one 15oz. can of black-eyed peas in a colander.
Gather one bell pepper (any color), two Roma tomatoes, one jalapeño, 1/4 of a red onion, and 1/4 bunch of cilantro. While any color bell pepper can be used, I like the colorful pop of yellow or orange bell pepper.
Finely dice the bell pepper, tomatoes, jalapeño, and red onion. The idea is to get the pieces close in size to the beans so that you have a “caviar” type appearance in the end. Roughly chop the cilantro leaves. Place the chopped vegetables in the bowl with the rinsed beans.
Pour the prepared dressing over the salad.
Stir the salad until everything is coated in the dressing. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat. This is one of those salads that tastes even better after it has time to chill in the fridge, so it’s great to eat over the course of a few days!
This Cowboy Caviar recipe makes a great snack with tortilla chips, a topper for tacos, bowl meals, or salads, or spoon some onto baked or grilled fish for a nice light meal!
I substituted 2 cups of sprouted red lentils for the black-eyed peas and 1 tbsp of green schug (recipe follows) for the jalapeno. The sprouts gave extra crunch (and extra nutrition) and the schug added a nice and more complex zip. A great outcome! For schug, mix the follow in a food processor and blend to a coarse paste: 1 cup parsley, 1 cup cilantro, 20 serrano peppers [stems removed], 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tbsp ground cardamom, 1 tbsp kosher salt, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 4 garlic cloves, 1 cup canola oil. You may substitute 1 tbsp ground fenugreek and 1 tbsp ground cumin for the coriander and cardamom spices. This makes a lovely (and long-lasting green hot sauce for your future meals. It keeps about a month in the ‘fridge (if you don’t eat it all first!!).
Hi Beth,
Do you de-seed the tomatoes before adding them? Or do you just put them in, seed goop and all?
Thanks!
I just put them in goop and all. :D But Roma tomatoes tend to have fewer seeds and goop than regular tomatoes, and when I dice the tomatoes the goop mostly falls out and gets left behind on the cutting board.
Is there a substitution you would recommend for the black eyed peas?
You could do something like pinto beans. :)
I use garbanzo beans and it came out amazing ☺
I was looking for something somewhat healthy that didn’t require refrigeration for a work potluck…..this was a hit! I made it the night before.
This has zero flavor and I would not make this again.
I like to make this without the sugar or jalepeno switch out the black eyed peas for garbanzos add in about 1/2 -3/4 cup of corn and add some chipotle hot sauce and fresh avocado. Just changes I like according to personal preference. Really great stuff and love budget bytes so helpful how they include the cost of each recipe and the per serving cost as well.
We make this a lot! I add corn and instead of black-eyed peas sometimes I use a cup or more of cooked quinoa (but always use black-eyed peas on New Years Day! LOL). I sometimes add chopped avocado, chopped olives (have used both black and green) and this is great on tacos, in burritos and served in hollowed out mini peppers. Even people who don’t like healthy food eat this, it’s kind of addicting!
When I was cutting the jalapeno into tiny caviar-size pieces, I somehow ended up squirting jalapeno juice in my eye and had to call poison control, almost ending up in the emergency room.
That said, this is literally one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten in my life.
I added a can of corn, which I would definitely suggest. I also pulled out two little portions and added mango to one, and avocado to the other, since one of the commenters suggested those additions. Mango was good and I think would be a good substitute to adding sugar. Avocado also tasted good but I couldn’t get it to cut very small, and it still ended up smashing into more of a paste.
I didn’t have limes so I used fresh lemon juice and it was totally fine.
I ate this with tortilla chips and also as a salad by the spoonful.
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Tried this and added Serrano Peppers and Avocado. Wow!! This is taste I have been looking for! I was a bit skeptical about using sugar bit it worked. Next time I might try mango or pinapple.
Thank you for the recipe.
Yum! I wonder if this would be good with summer yellow squash added in… #gardensurplus
This recipe was a hit at a party and making it again to go over lettuce and serve with Beth’s enchiladas.
I put chicken in a bowl with some of this cowboy caviar and the next morning I put the leftovers on my sunny side up egg. This stuff is great!
I made this today and it was really good! I left out the cilantro because I don’t really like it, and I added in another jalepeno to spice it up. I also had about 1/4th of a bag of frozen corn left over so I defrosted it and threw that in as well. I served a big scoop of this over some lettuce and salsa, and crunched up some blue corn chips on top. It made a delicious taco salad!
I made this the other night and served it over rice and seasoned chicken I cooked in a cast iron skillet. It was amazing! Everyone in my family loved it! And my son doesn’t like chicken, but with the beans, he at least got some protein so we were both ok with it!