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
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!
Made this on a camping trip. It was a hit! Easy to make inside an RV. That group wants me to camp with them again as long as I make this recipe.
This was so versatile. I ate it on tortilla chips but I could eat it alone as a salad easily. I let it sit in the fridge for an hour before serving and I think it really helped the flavors mingle.
This is the perfect bean salad! I wondered if the dressing amount would be enough, but it was exactly the right amount to cover everything and bring all the flavors together. I have just finished making my second batch in the space of a week. The first batch was taken to a potluck, where it was rapidly devoured. We were still craving it, so that’s why a second batch has been stashed in the fridge. I have no doubt that it will also be finished off in a timely manner!
Just made it for a side with barbecue as we had a power cut and cooking wasn’t really an option. Amazing! Done it exactly as the recipe states except the cilantro which I don’t like.
Lovely! Thank you for this recipe!
I make this as a regular part of our summer menu and everyone loves it. It’s really great to add a cup of cooked quinoa and turn it into a quinoa veggi salad!
Absolutely delicious! I have tried other versions at parties- by far this is my favorite. Love the dressing. In addition to the ingredients listed, I added avocado, a couple handfuls of corn(neither of which I suspect are really needed) and a little more dressing because were are serving it as an appetizer with Tostitos. I can definitely see this becoming a staple appetizer in our household. Yummy!
I love this salad! I make it frequently, adding avocado and substituting the black eyed peas for corn. This is great for a meatless day.
Just so you know, this is now a tried and true and dearly loved dinner favorite in my house. Made some very small adjustments according to our tastes… .5T less oil and lime juice, some pepper, and adding the oil in slowly while the rest of the dressing ingredients are blending in a food processor to help it emulsify. Plus subbing a can of corn for one of the cans of beans and skipping the jalapeno…..okay so those aren’t very small adjustments. The point stands- tasty, healthy, and cheap recipe :) If you’re not picky about perfect chopping, you can use a food processor to chop the onion and pepper together, and then use it for the dressing (which I really recommend….hand whisking doesn’t produce as emulsified of a dressing, which definitely tastes better).
Does this freeze well? I’m wondering if I can use it in freezer breakfast burritos :)
I think it would probably do well in a breakfast burrito, because you won’t notice the texture changes as much. I probably wouldn’t want to eat it just like a salad after freezing because the fresh ingredients will be all limp. :)
I made this for New Year’s (black eyed peas) last year and I added a pound of cut up spicy shrimp. It was fabulous!
This is so stunning and delicious! I am making this for a potluck tomorrow, and it is oh my goodness so good. I used 3 cans of tri-bean blend, corn, one avocado, tomatoes, and cilantro, along with the small red onion. I put everything in the sauce that you have listed except the oil. I left out the jalapeno too so pickier palettes can eat it. Absolutely delicious I can’t stop stealing bites from the bowl. Thank you for sharing such wonderful recipes. Your pumpkin lentil curry soup is out of this world good, too, as well as your newer winter veg lentil soup. Your recipes are in our frequent rotation! Thank you!
So you know how many grams is 1/2 cup for the cowboy caviar?
No, I’m sorry, I don’t know the weight.
Can this be made the day before?
Yes, definitely. :) I usually make it and eat it for the next few days.
is there a sbstitute for the cilantro…..my husband hates the flavor of it…
You can either just skip it or add a couple sliced green onions in its place. :)
Hi!
Is there a substitution for the balsamic vinegar? Maybe just normal vinegar?