Easy Cowboy Caviar (Black Eyed Pea Salsa)

This Easy Cowboy Caviar is a delicious appetizer or snack made with black eyed peas, black beans, sweet corn and a variety of fresh ingredients. Just add your favorite tortilla chips for a healthy chip dip!

Easy Cowboy Caviar Recipe

Cowboy caviar is super easy and versatile. You can serve it as a side salad, appetizer dip or even as a topping for tacos.

This dip is perfect year round. We love it in summer, but I like to serve it on New Year’s Day for luck since it’s the only way my picky eaters will eat black eyed peas!

What makes this appetizer so easy is you can use canned goods for the base. Then, you add as much fresh produce as you want. When I make cowboy caviar in the summer, I’ll throw in fresh tomatoes, avocados and jalapeño peppers. If I’m lucky, I can get tomatoes and jalapenos straight from the garden.

Some folks call this dip black-eyed pea salsa or Texas Caviar or black-eyed pea dip. If you’re looking for healthy chip dip, you’re going to love this one!

Ingredients

This southern caviar recipe is made with a blend of fresh veggies, canned veggies and typical salsa ingredients. What you don’t have at home should be easy to find online or at your local grocery store. Full amounts are in the printable recipe card below.

• Can black beans 
• Can black-eyed peas 
• Can sweet corn — or shoepeg corn — I love shoepeg corn, but it’s not always easy to find.
• Jalapeño pepper — seeded and diced
• Red bell pepper or green bell pepper — seeded and diced
• Roma tomatoes 
• Red onion
• Cilantro — chopped. Adds flavor and freshness
• Avocados — (optional)
• Olive oil — or vegetable oil
• Juice of 2 limes
• Vinegar
• Seasonings — sea salt, black pepper, cumin, smoked paprika and garlic powder

How to Make Cowboy Caviar

Start out by draining and rinsing the canned black beans, black eyed peas and corn. Then add them to a large bowl.

Next, chop up your fresh produce, and add that to the bowl, as well. You’ll want to save the avocados for last.

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together in a small mixing bowl. To save time, you can use a cup or so of Italian salad dressing or your favorite vinaigrette.

Add the avocados last, if you are using them, and pour the dressing over everything. Mix everything together, and you’re good to go.

Pop it in the fridge for about an hour or so before serving. The flavor gets better the longer it sits!

What do You Serve with Black Eyed Pea Salsa?

Serve it as a dip with tortilla chips or Fritos. You can also use it as a topping for carnitas or tacos, burritos or a side dish for taco pasta.

We sometimes add black eyed pea salsa to pulled pork sandwiches — especially for New Year’s Day! It’s perfect for game day, a potluck, parties and other holidays too!

How to Store

Store leftover cowboy caviar in an airtight container in the refrigerator, where it’ll last for 2 to 3 days.

Personally, I think the caviar is even better the next day, since the flavors have even more time to blend together!

If you want to make Texas caviar in advance, mix all the ingredients together like you would normally, but do not add the avocados. Wait to add avocados until the day of serving, so that they don’t get mushy.

Variations

There are a couple ways to customize this easy black-eyed pea salsa to your tastes.

If you want to keep things as easy as possible, use a can of diced tomatoes or Ro-tel instead of fresh tomatoes.

You can leave out the avocados, especially if you want to make caviar in advance.

This recipe is super versatile, so you can add or leave out whatever ingredients you want, really. Sometimes I like to add green onions, fresh garlic, or an extra fresh jalapeño for more kick.

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Recipe was originally published in 2016 and updated in 2024