The Best I Ever Had: Cowboy Beans

AKA Ranch Style Beans or Texas Style Pinto Beans or Frijoles de Olla

The following piece was published at “Old Ones Dream” November 27, 2013, and as update here, in “Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork” April 14, 2022.

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Also known as Ranch Style Beans or Texas Style Pinto Beans, among other things, they can be cooked either in a large crock pot, in a Dutch oven on the stove, in the oven, over coals, or on the smoker. If you cook them in an earthenware pot over live coals, as they do in Mexico and New Mexico, then you can call them Frijoles de Olla (beans of the pot). If you are reading this you already know all of the cool hot things you can do with Cowboy beans, but they are best served with smoked brisket, sausage and ribs; coleslaw, fresh raw jalapeños, sliced onion, cornbread, and Shiner Bock.

          3 cups of dried pinto beans

          6 cloves of garlic (diced or crushed)

          3 whole dried Chipotle peppers

          3 slices Benton’s Bacon (1/4 lb.)

          1 medium onion (chopped)

          2 Tbsp ground cumin

          1 Tbsp Mexican oregano

          1/2 tsp ground black pepper

          Water enough to keep covered

          3 tsp organic vegetable base (”Better Than Bouillon”)

          1 tsp organic beef base (”Better Than Bouillon”)

Sort the beans on a white towel to remove stones and flawed beans, rinse well, cover at least an inch deep in high quality water in an inert bowl (not metal or painted pottery), and soak overnight.

Brown Benton’s Bacon, which is very lean and smoky, considered by many to be the best bacon in the world, and pour off most of the fat, then sauté the onions, deglaze the skillet with water and retain the liquid, and add everything but the bacon and the vegetable and beef base to the pot with the beans. Some folks like to pour off the water that the beans were soaked in, and others like to preserve the flavor and nutrients in that water and use it to cook the beans. The beans will be good no matter which.

Start the beans on high for a few minutes and then low-low for the duration. On the stove you can have them ready in a few hours, in the crock-pot in a half day, and on the fire you best stay tuned. After two hours taste the broth and decide whether to remove the Chipotle peppers. In the last 30 minutes of cooking, add the bacon, the vegetable and beef base, and adjust the seasoning to taste. You have no doubt noticed that no salt has been added to this point. The Benton’s Bacon and the vegetable and beef base usually suffice.

We find Benton’s Bacon locally in bulk at Food Matters Market and at other natural food markets. You can also order direct from the farm in Madisonville, Tennessee.