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
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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 have made this so many times now and I love it. It’s one of my favorites things ever especially in the summer. It lasts great and is so fresh tasting. It’s really versatile. I like it best just eaten with chips but it’s great on a salad greens, in a tortilla, with rice, will grilled chicken or fish. Usually after making things a while I end up modify the receipt a bit but this one is perfect just as it is.
This is so tasty! I made it 3 or 4 days ago, and my mother has already finished it off and had me make another batch. I don’t like peppers and I don’t eat oil, so I left those out, and I only used an inch of jalapeño because last time it was too hot for me. I also added 2 extra tomatoes and a cup of frozen corn. The flavor is so good, and I love all the fresh-tasting ingredients. Yum!
Made this for a family get together. Left out he cilantro knowing that others wouldn’t enjoy it. It was great. It was even greater when I used the leftovers and stuffed it into a tortilla. Made an awesome burrito!
This is easily one of the best things I have ever tasted. Perfect for summer!
So yummy. The whole family enjoyed this. Tasty, refreshing, easy, healthy, budget friendly. Whats not to love? It’s perfect as written, but for variety of to use what I already had, I’ve also made it sometimes with changes: add garlic; garbanzo instead of black eyed peas; leave out olive oil in a pinch; add pineapple for a change; add quinoa for variety and more protein; and if course an avocado added in if you’ve got one around never hurt You won’t regret making this.
This really resembled a dip I had over the holidays this year, and I thought I would try adding some of additional ingredients from that and it worked out so well! I added avocado and cubed mango, but mushed up the avocado a bit first. Flipping amazing, thanks so much for the recipe!
How long can I keep this in the refrigerator?
About 4-5 days.
Can you use lemon juice if you don’t have lime?
Lime juice definitely tastes better in this one, but I suppose lemon would work in a pinch.
My husband approves of the dish, and I approve of not having to actually cook anything. Excited to use this in the summer when we’re trying to keep the kitchen cool. :)
This was outstanding. Healthy, tasty and inexpensive. Whats not to like? Had it with tortilla chips and then put it in flour tortillas with Monterrey jack cheese and nuked 60 seconds, heavenly!
Interesting dish. Looks like I would be refreshing. LOL. My brain is racing for ways to make it my own.
I look forward to sharing this one with my mom back home in Texas.
I love how versatile your recipes are, but this side dish is one that hits home.
-from Oregon-
Made this for my weekly meal prep, and even now, on Day 3, it’s still delicious! I did make some substitutions because I didn’t have some things on hand (cooked up some dried pinto and black beans instead of using the cans, used white onion instead of red, diced up some canned diced tomatoes (drained the juice), and used lemon juice instead of lime), but it’s still super delicious!
One thing that I did find, though, is that this makes way more than 5 1/2 c servings. The total volume is closer to 5 or 6 1 c servings. So, keep that in mind when planning if you can eat it all!
Hi Beth (and fellow BudgetBytes lovers!),
Do you happen to know if this would freeze well? I’m trying to plan some make ahead work lunches for my partner and would love to be able to take a small portion of this out of the freezer and put it in a bento box.
Thanks in advance!
I wouldn’t suggest freezing this one because of the fresh vegetables. It will get very soft, mushy, and watery. :(
Thanks for your reply, it is appreciated a lot! This is one of our favourite bean salads, so we will continue enjoying it, just without freezing it :-) !
Do you think canning it would work? i would love to put it in those little jars and just have an easy go to snack too!
Finally got around to making this. I added some fresh raw corn as well. It was awesome. My hubby very much approved. The next day(not that there was much) I had it will tortilla chips. Great little side dish.