This easy Cowboy Beans Recipe is a delicious spin on traditional BBQ baked beans. A trio of beans is loaded up with bacon, ground beef, peppers, and onions, then cooked to perfection. It's a crowd pleasing side dish perfect for your next potluck or a simple, hearty main dish easy to make for busy weeknights.
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Cowboy beans are BBQ baked beans taken up a notch and transformed into a beefy, bacon-filled dish that will have everyone rushing back for seconds. Whether you plan to serve them up for a summer backyard cookout or a satisfying main dish when there's a chill in the air, these beans are always a hit!
You will love how easy old-fashioned cowboy beans are to make while everyone else will love the terrific flavors. For more comforting side dishes try this Baked Mac and Cheese and my homemade Sausage and Gravy! You will be glad you did!
Why You'll Love This Cowboy Baked Beans Recipe
- Budget-Friendly: This recipe for cowboy beans is made with canned beans and a handful of other affordable ingredients that are easy on your wallet.
- Family-Friendly: Everyone loves the sweet and smoky flavors of cowboy beans! Even picky kids will eat them up.
- Great for Meal Prep: These beans are freezer-friendly! We love to make a big batch and save half for another meal on down the road.
- Easy to Make: This dish cooks up in one pot and is perfect for cooks of all levels. After a quick prep, it cooks up in the oven until bubbly and bursting with flavor.
Ingredients
- Beans: We combine the sweet flavors of canned pork and beans with kidney beans and pinto beans. The beauty of this dish is that you can easily swap the beans to use others you have on hand or prefer. Skip the pork and beans for a less sweet flavor, or try some black beans or white beans instead.
- Ground Beef: Cowboy beans with hamburger turns this savory sweet side dish into a hearty dish that would also work as a simple main dish as well.
- Bacon: Bacon adds a salty, smoky flavor to the beans. It balances out the sweet and tangy flavors of the BBQ sauce and other ingredients in the dish.
- Bell Peppers and Onions: Sauteed with the beef to give the cowboy baked beans more depth.
- Ketchup, Mustard, and BBQ Sauce: A simple combination that makes the base for the sweet and tangy sauce for the beans. You can use any flavor of BBQ sauce you enjoy.
- Brown Sugar: Brown sugar adds extra sweetness and hints of rich molasses to the dish. For an even more complex flavor you can swap it for molasses.
- Seasonings: A blend of black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and chili powder adds a bold flavor to the beans.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for a full list of the ingredients and their exact amounts.
Flavor Variations
- Spicy Kick: Dice up some jalapenos or other chili pepper and cook them with the peppers and onions to add a bit of heat to the beans.
- Swap Ground Beef: For a leaner option use ground turkey or chicken in place of the beef. For more spicy flavor use chorizo instead.
- Smoked Cowboy Beans: Add a few drops of liquid smoke or some smoked paprika for a more intense smoky flavor.
How To Make Cowboy Beans
- Step 1: Cook the bacon. Add the bacon to a large Dutch oven and cook until crispy. Drain the grease off.
- Step 2: Brown the beef. Add the ground beef and vegetables to the same pot and cook until the beef is brown and the vegetables are tender. Break the beef up with a wooden spoon as it cooks.
- Step 3: Cook. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot and stir together. Place the Dutch oven in the oven. Cook at 350℉ for 45-50 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Enjoy!
Hint: Use an Oven Safe Pot
This way you don't have to wash more than one pot!! We love using a Dutch oven when making cowboy beans with hamburger and bacon because it's totally oven-safe. If you don't have a Dutch oven, make sure your pot is rated specifically for oven use. If you don't have one, it's ok, just transfer the beans to a baking dish to cook in the oven!
Storage Directions
- Store Leftovers: Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 days or you can freeze them for up to 3 months. Remove them from the freeze and let them defrost in the refrigerator overnight before reheating.
- Reheat: Return the beans to a pot and cook them over medium-low heat until heated through.
Serving Suggestions
Sweet, smoky, and savory, these cowboy baked beans make a side dish that's great for a potluck, cookout, BBQ, family gathering, and more. It's on our menu regularly for dinner too and it's an easy main dish our whole family loves.
Serve it up with your favorite dinner recipes like these skillet chicken thighs, these flank steak tacos, or our Instant Pot chicken tacos.
If you're serving these cowboy beans as a main course, pair them with bread like this Dutch oven bread or these breadsticks. They add flavor, and you can dip them in the extra sauce!
Finish things off with something sweet like our O'Henry bars, cowboy cookies, or our coconut chocolate chip cookies.
Expert Tips
- Drain the Beans. I suggest draining the kidney and pinto beans very well as the starchy liquid in the beans makes the sauce too thick. Make sure to keep the liquid with the pork and beans as these are flavored!
- Don't Overcook the Beef. Cook it until browned and no further. Ground beef cooks relatively quickly, and overcooking it makes it rubbery and reduces its flavor.
- Don't Burn the Bacon. I prefer using medium heat for cooking bacon. It's the sweet spot that allows it to get crispy without burning, so don't try to rush it.
- Adjust the Flavors. You can easily adjust the sweetness, smokiness, and spiciness of the dish by using more or less brown sugar and by the BBQ sauce you choose.
Recipe FAQs
Draining the beans helps you control the salt content as well as the thickness of the beans. The starchy liquid can make the beans too thick as they cook, and it adds a substantial amount of salt that you don't need.
If your cowboy beans are mushy, they were almost certainly cooked for too long. This recipe only needs to be cooked long enough for the sauce to thicken because the beans are already cooked. Over-baking the dish will make the beans mushy.
Navy, white, kidney, and pinto beans are all excellent for baked beans and are commonly used for the dish.
More Easy Side Dish Recipes
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Cowboy Baked Beans
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ pound bacon cut into bite size pieces
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 medium yellow onion diced
- 1 medium red bell pepper diced
- 2 (16 ounce) cans of pork and beans
- 1 (15.5 ounce) can kidney beans rinsed and drained
- 1 (15.5 ounce) can pinto beans rinsed and drained
- 1 cup ketchup
- ¼ cup barbecue sauce
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1½ tablespoon yellow mustard
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉.
- Cook the bacon until crispy in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Remove and drain the grease.
- Add the ground beef, onion, and bell pepper to the large pot or Dutch. Cook until the ground beef is browned and the vegetables are softened, about 5-7 minutes. Drain any excess fat.
- Add all beans, ketchup, barbecue sauce, brown sugar, and all spices to the pot. Mix until well combined.
- Cover and cook for 45-50 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
- Serve while hot, and enjoy!
Notes
- Drain the Beans. I suggest draining the kidney and pinto beans very well as the starchy liquid in the beans makes the sauce too thick. Make sure to keep the liquid with the pork and beans as these are flavored!
- Don't Overcook the Beef. Cook it until browned and no further. Ground beef cooks relatively quickly, and overcooking it makes it rubbery and reduces its flavor.
- Don't Burn the Bacon. I prefer using medium heat for cooking bacon. It's the sweet spot that allows it to get crispy without burning, so don't try to rush it.
- Adjust the Flavors. You can easily adjust the sweetness, smokiness, and spiciness of the dish by using more or less brown sugar and by the BBQ sauce you choose.
Nutrition
*All nutrition information provided is automatically calculated and is an estimate and will vary based on ingredients, brands, and changes in cooking methods listed in the recipe. If you need exact numbers on your ingredients, I would recommend calculating them with your prefered nutrition calculator.
Ryan Allen
These yummy beans are the perfect side dish for any dinner or BBQ.