Texas Caviar Recipe For Y’All
I had Texas caviar when I was living in San Antonio and it was love at first bite. With delicious ingredients such as black eyed peas, tomatoes, corn, and fresh green onions, what’s not to love?
Have you been introduced to Texas caviar yet? If not, you’re truly in for a treat! It’s so simple and easy to make, but the ingredients combine to make such a flavorful and fresh side dish. My Texas caviar recipe includes black eyed peas, corn, diced tomatoes, Italian dressing, and fresh parsley and green onion. All you have to do is combine the ingredients, let it sit in the fridge and marinate, and then it’s time to dig in!
I serve mine with tortilla chips but many a person has been known to eat it simply with a bowl and spoon. However you decide to partake of it, this recipe combines the best of flavors and lets you spoon up the good life for you and your guests!
You can serve it as a dip or appetizer, as a substitute for salsa or Pico de Gallo, or alongside a main dish like chicken fajitas. The choice is all yours.
Why Is It Called Texas ‘Caviar’?
Well, my friend Wikipedia aptly points out that it is a humorous comparison to the fancy-schmancy caviar dish that you find at upscale restaurants. But what I didn’t know is it was made by a New Yorker in the 1940s. Now, who would’ve thought! Also known as Cowboy Caviar, the word is that it was first served on New Year’s in Houston. It truly has become the caviar of the south.
Recipe Ingredients
- Whole kernel corn
- Black eyed peas (with jalapeno if you can get them)
- Petite diced tomatoes (feel free to substitute for fresh Roma or tomatoes if you have them available to you).
- Zesty Italian dressing
- Fresh parsley
- Green onion
How to Make Texas Caviar
Drain all of your cans well and dump them one by one into a dishpan or a large bowl.
Chop up some fresh parsley and add that in there along with the chopped green onion.
Hint on the green onions: I just cut mine up with kitchen shears. So much easier than trying to slice them.
Pour the entire bottle of dressing over the ingredients and stir.
Refrigerate for several hours to let the flavors blend and serve with veggie sticks, homemade tortilla chips, crackers, or corn chips, like you do salsa.
Enjoy each scoop as the flavors burst in your mouth!
Storage
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Any longer and you’ll probably find the ingredients get very mushy.
- Here are some ways to use the leftovers:
- Mix with a cup of cooked rice for a delicious vegetarian rice salad.
- Add some fresh greens to make a salad for lunch.
- Add to an omelet.
- Spoon a serving over grilled meat for dinner, like chicken tenderloins, steak, or fish.
Recipe Notes
- Chill the Texas caviar dip for at least one hour or overnight for maximum flavor. This is the perfect appetizer to make ahead of time.
- Here are some variations to make this Texas caviar recipe your own:
- Substitute the black eyed peas for any kind of beans, or do a combination of black eyed peas and black beans if you like.
- Substitute the fresh parsley for fresh cilantro.
- Add a cup of diced bell pepper.
- Substitute the green onion for a red onion.
- Add diced avocado right before serving.
- If you don’t get a can of black eyed peas with jalapeno, you can simply add 1 medium jalapeno.
- You can use canned, fresh corn, or frozen corn kernels in this recipe.
- Instead of Italian dressing, which is the traditional way to serve Texas caviar, make a homemade chilli lime dressing. You’ll want to combine 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lime juice, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin.
- You could also just add 3 to 4 tablespoons of lime juice to this recipe when you add the other ingredients to enhance the flavor.
You might also enjoy these Texas-inspired recipes:
Pimiento Cheese Dip Good N Gooey
Bruschetta with a Texas Twist (Video)
Ingredients
- 2 green onions
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 2 cans black eyed peas with jalapeno if available
- 1 can petite diced tomatoes
- 2 cans whole kernel corn
- 1 bottle zesty Italian dressing
Instructions
- Drain the cans well and pour the contents into a large bowl or dishpan. Add the chopped parsley. Cut the green onion and add as well. Add the entire bottle of Italian dressing and stir well.2 green onions, 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, 2 cans black eyed peas, 1 can petite diced tomatoes, 1 bottle zesty Italian dressing, 2 cans whole kernel corn
- Refrigerate. Serve with tortilla chips or corn chips.
Pink: IF I’m interested???????? ME, not being interested in a recipe? Are you crazy! SEND IT TO ME GAL!!!
Of COURSE I’m INTERESTED!!! 😀
Tina (Mommy’s Kitchen) – And you made pralines today, which are one of my dearest favorites! LOL I swear, we are going to start posting the same recipes on the same days eventually!
Oh wow Christy I love Texas Caviar!!! I make this over the holidays and can them and add to my wonderful holiday food baskets. My recipe doesnt have tomatoes what a nice addition. Our recipe is almost exact except mine has Cilantro instead of Parsley and i dont add the tomatoes but everything else is exact.
LOL I love the name of this!!! MY kids would not eat it though ): I would!
OK I am going to send you a one skillet recipe for genuine Korean Curry….yes its not southern and its WAY diff but I made ti tonight aND i think you would enjoy it. I will try to get it together this week of your interested!
Debbie: I’m so glad you got it!!! It wasn’t all that pretty now! I just like to sit and embroider little hankies. I don’t ever have a plan or design in mind, I just choose thread colors that look pretty to me that day and sit and do flowers or leaves or borders, whatever strikes my fancy!
I know exactly what you are talking about with the meg ryan comment. It does make you feel…I don’t know. There is just something special about having something pretty and dainty!
Hey, the only thing better than a comment is a novel! hehe! Thank you for letting me know it got there, I was wondering about that this morning!
Do try the Texas Caviar, I am sure you’ll like it! I wish I had a better camera to get a good up close shot.
~sighs~
Its on top of my list once I hit the lottery!
~Christy
Angie: Thank you so much! If you try it, I guarantee you’ll love it. Honestly. You sound like me and when we like all this mess, glopping it together and putting it on a tortilla chip is like a one way ticket to heaven! I could pig out on it all day long!!!
Now I gotta go eat some more fruit cocktail cake!
~Christy
Christy this looks great! Wish I would have seen it before I hosted my book club last week…it would have been a great “starter”.
Most importantly I wanted to let you know my hankie got here. It is GORGEOUS!!! Thank you so much. Just last week, I had a bad summer cold (not that I could have ever used such a beautiful hankie, ) and watched “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. In the movie she has a line where she says, “children just don’t know what hankies are anymore..imagine that” (or something along those lines), so I am feeling very “Meg Ryanish” right now, with my pretty hankie!
Thank you again…SO MUCH.
I better stop now, it says “comments” and not “long letters”.
Will be trying the Texas Caviar at my next party.
A huge thanks from me for this one. It looks so delicious…..I love all of the ingredients, and I LOVE how moist fruit cocktail cake always turns out!