I’m gonna be real with you: I’m not into sweet beans (I’m a savory gal myself). So you won’t find me stocking my pantry with cans of baked beans or ordering them on the side of my barbecue. This is why I was intrigued when I came across cowboy beans for the first time.
Cowboy beans strike a great balance between sweet and savory. They’re not as sweet as traditional baked beans, but not as savory as the kind of beans I typically cook and serve over rice. Cowboy beans are a popular side dish in the Southwest that’s often served alongside a barbecue meal. It consists of a mix of beans, ground beef, bacon, barbecue sauce, and some kind of sweetener (I’ve seen recipes that use brown sugar, molasses, or even maple syrup), all simmered together in a Dutch oven.
