Texas Caviar — 💚🧡❤️ You don’t need to buy this FAST and EASY dip made with Tex-Mex inspired ingredients including black eyed peas, tomatoes, corn, avocado, and a seasoned lime-cumin dressing! Serve it with tortilla chips at your next backyard barbecue, picnic, game day party, or for a holiday party. It’s good luck to eat black eyed peas in the new year!
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If you’ve never had a chip piled high with Texas caviar, you need to try it, stat. It’s the most addicting stuff ever!
That’s because Texas caviar is chock full of black eyed peas, corn, tomatoes, avocado, and cilantro for a flavor and texture explosion in every bite!
This poor man’s “caviar” recipe is finished by tossing everything with an olive oil, lime juice, chili and cumin-spiced dressing that coats everything to perfection.
This cowboy caviar is ready in 10 minutes flat. I do suggest chilling it for 30 minutes after you mix everything together but do what you need to do if you’re short on time.
I don’t know if you want to call Texas caviar a snack, side, appetizer, or dip – but I know your family and friends will gobble it right up!
A Quick Disclaimer
Before I dive into this recipe I would like to say:
I’m not from Texas. I have lived in six states in the US, and in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. But for the last 20 years I have called San Diego home.
Is being a Texan a requirement for making this recipe? Heck no!
Are there literally 9 million search results for ‘Texas Caviar’? Yes there sure are, and they are all a bit different. Which is also why I have a section below called Ingredients Substitutions so if your mom/grandma/uncle/grocery store deli makes this just a little differently, that’s awesome. You can refer to that section and compare or get ideas.
Do I need or want you to write to me telling me this isn’t the ‘right way’ to make this recipe? Just no, please. I get enough mail and that’s not any I need.
Ingredients in Texas Caviar
This family-favorite recipe is made with easy to find and very common refrigerator and pantry ingredients including the following:
For the Caviar
- Black eyed peas – Rather than, or in addition to, the black eyed peas, you can use black beans. Either swap them in entirely, or do half and half.
- Corn – Frozen, fresh, or canned are all fine. Make sure to drain off the water from the frozen corn after it thaws and drain canned corn well.
- Tomatoes– Roma are my go-to, although if you have cherry or grape tomatoes, halve or quarter them and toss them in.
- Avocado
- Cilantro – If you’re a cilantro hater, just skip it.
- Green onions – Use red onion if you don’t have green.
- Salt and Pepper – Make sure to season well because simple plant-based ingredients really benefit from proper seasoning.
For the Dressing
- Lime juice – Freshly squeezed is preferred, but use bottled if that’s what you have.
- Honey — Or agave nectar especially if you’re trying to keep it vegan.
- Ground cumin
- Chili powder
- Smoked paprika
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper – To taste.
- Chips – For serving.
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
Ingredient Substitutions
This is one of those recipes that everyone’s grandma, auntie, or brother-in-law makes it a little differently based on what their families enjoy or have on hand.
Here are just some of many ingredients swaps and substitutions you can make:
- Bell Peppers – Green bell peppers, red bell peppers, orange or yellow are a nice touch.
- Lime juice – This is a staple for me, but I have also seen people use apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar.
- Cumin, Chili Powder, Smoked Paprika – I use all three, but they have overlapping flavor profiles, and if you only have 2 out of the 3, go for it. Always add to taste! I use 1 teaspoon of each but if you want to tone done the boldness, use 1/2 teaspoon.
- Garlic fan? Add a few shakes of garlic powder or garlic seasoning or even a clove or two of finely chopped garlic. You may need less salt if using garlic seasoning as it already has a decent sodium content.
- Love jalapenos? It’s easy to add some to your taste. They don’t provide much true ‘heat’ but they add flavor.
- Craving Heat? – Add either a bit of a finely diced serrano chile pepper and/or a pinch of cayenne pepper. Note that serranos are about 10x hotter than jalapenos which really aren’t spicy – flavorful, but not spicy. And be very, very careful with the cayenne pepper. A teeny tiny pinch will do the trick!
How to Make Texas Caviar
I love an easy-peasy dump-it-all in one bowl recipe and that’s exactly what this cowboy caviar recipe is!
- Add all the Texas caviar ingredients to a large bowl. Make sure to drain and rinse the beans (black eyed peas) very well before adding them.
- Mix up the dressing portion, whisking in the olive oil last to emulsify it.
- Drizzle the dressing over the Texas caviar ingredients, cover, and chill before serving!
Recipe FAQs
It’s rumored that Texas caviar was the creation of a lady who lived in, you guessed it Texas, back in the 1940s. She was an executive chef at a prestigious institution in New York, and moved to Texas. There, she became aware of how common black eyed peas were. But she didn’t like black eye peas. So she came up with a way to make them more palatable.
Her recipe was served at a hotel at the time, gained fame, the name stuck, and here we are today still enjoying the recipe we know as Texas caviar.
Note: This is my condensation of a variety of facts, stories, information, and details I pulled from a dozen sources or so on the internet. I do not guarantee accuracy and it could be a true old wives tale – no one knows. But this is what is the reported truth.
Since cowboys and Texas go hand-in-hand, it’s not surprising that this easy appetizer recipe also took on the name cowboy caviar! Recipes will vary from person to person, grandma to grandma, and from Texan to say Californian, but the overall gist of the recipe is the same.
While the homemade Texas caviar dressing I make is a cinch, and since you have to use lime juice not only for flavor but to prevent the avocado from oxidizing as rapidly, I think it’s just as easy to make my own dressing rather than using store bought.
However, if you don’t want to be bothered, you can use a 2 tablespoons lime juice + 1/3 cup Italian salad dressing from a bottle, see how it looks, and add more, if desired. I also think 1-2 tablespoons olive oil drizzled in is a nice touch but again, play it by ear and decide as you’re mixing it up.
For quick and easy dip recipes like this, and most other recipes in my kitchen truth be told, I am a huge fan of canned beans for ease, simplicity, and time savings.
If you really want to make homemade beans beginning with dry beans that you first soak and then cook, my Instant Pot Beans recipe is a big time saver if you have an one. While the recipe uses black beans, you can also use it for black eyed peas (which are not peas but are beans).
Yes you sure can. If you’re making this for a party such as a tailgating or game day party, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Father’s Day, or as a Christmas party or New Year’s Eve party recipe and you know you need more, by all means – double or triple all the ingredients.
Absolutely yes you can, and in fact, I prefer it after it’s been sitting 12-24 hours in the fridge. The flavors meld and marry as time passes. However, there’s a sweet spot in just how far in advance you can make it because you don’t want the avocado to start oxidizing, which it’ll be prone to doing after 24-48 hours.
Storage Instructions
Kept in an airtight container, cowboy or Texas caviar will keep in the fridge for up to 4-5 days. As time passes, it may become a bit more liquid-ey or watery. This is natural because the salt will cause the veggies to release their natural juices.
Also, the avocado will oxidize. In the presence of plenty of lime juice, it’s minimized, but there’s no way to prevent it fully. Therefore, after 24-48 hours it may not win any beauty contests, but the taste will be just fine.
What to Serve with Texas Caviar
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Texas Caviar
Ingredients
Texas Caviar
- one 15-ounce can black eyed peas, drained and rinsed (black beans may be substituted for part or all of the black eyed peas)
- one 15-ounce can white corn, Frozen, thawed, and drained corn OR fresh corn may be substituted; white or yellow ok
- 2 cups Roma tomatoes, diced small
- 2 large or 3 medium ripe Hass avocados, halved, seed removed, flesh scored, and scooped out
- ¼ to ⅓ cup fresh cilantro, finely minced
- 2 green onions, trimmed and sliced very thin (I use root to tip; 1/4 cup finely diced red onion may be substituted)
- ½ to 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- ½ to 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
Dressing
- ¼ cup lime juice, freshly squeezed
- 1 to 2 tablespoons honey, or agave syrup
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, or regular
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ⅓ cup olive oil
Instructions
- Texas Caviar – To a large bowl, add all the ingredients, and stir well to combine. Tip – Read the blog post for the myriad of substitutions and swap you can make with the ingredients. I listed the obvious in the ingredients above in the recipe like black beans in lieu of black eyed peas, or red onions instead of green. But you can add bell peppers of any color, jalapeno pepper, serrano chile, etc.
- Dressing* – To a medium bowl, add all the dressing ingredients except the olive oil, and whisk to combine.
- Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking constantly to emulsify it.
- Pour the dressing over the Texas caviar, stir and toss well to combine, and taste. Seasoning Tips – If it tastes at all flat, boring, or lacks oomph, it likely needs more salt, so add it, and fairly generously. The same is true for pepper. Then move on to a dash more cumin and chili powder for more flavor. While not specifically called out above, garlic powder or garlic salt is a nice addition. Add more lime juice if you like more acid, or a bit more sweetener if that's your preference, etc.
- Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes (or up to 12-24 hours) in the fridge before serving. Serve with white or yellow corn chips, or your favorite dippers. Leftover Texas caviar will keep airtight in the fridge for 4-5 days, noting that the mixture will become more watery as time passes as the vegetables release their natural juices over time. And the avocado will oxidize. The taste will be fine, despite the color.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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I’m going to a vegan potluck next week, and I thought I would bring this. One concern, I can’t use honey (because of the vegan thing) but I’d rather not buy any agave syrup since I won’t really use it. Is that touch of sweetness really a game changer?
If you don’t want to buy a bottle just for this recipe, then just use a tablespoon of white sugar instead, or to taste. You will probably want some sweetener to balance the lime juice.