Tender pinto beans are cooked up with ground beef, bacon, and finally some barbecue sauce for an irresistible family pleasing meal made all in one skillet! This cowboy barbecue skillet is perfect for camping and feeding a crowd!
A family friendly recipe perfect for dinners and a great camping meal too!
The ease of this recipe caught my eye on allrecipes.com, and I figured it would be easily tweaked to my standards.
To control the sweeteners, I make my own BBQ sauce using half stevia, half maple syrup. I use this Chipotle BBQ Sauce, or this low carb bbq sauce looks great too.
Depending on our mood, I serve it atop either my Corn Free Millet Cornbread, or my gluten free dairy free biscuits. I bet this potato salad recipe would be perfection too! Either way, this is quick and easy throw together meal for the family!!
**Also a great camping food!**
Preparing your own pinto beans for this cowboy barbecue skillet
I LOVE MY PRESSURE COOKER! It saves me so much time and money! You could also try my Instant Pot pinto beans, perfect for your next taco night!
For this meal, I like to soak my beans overnight in water and apple cider vinegar to make them easier to digest.
Cooking pinto beans in your Instant Pot
- Drain your soaked beans and rinse well.
- Cook them in electric pressure cooker like the Instant Pot, covered with ample water for 15 minutes. (in the IP, use ‘manual’ or ‘pressure cook‘ mode). Remember the cook time STARTS once the it comes to full pressure, not before.
- Once the time is up, hit ‘cancel.’ Do a natural release (let the pot sit, completely off until pressure gauge goes down) and they are ready, and FAR superior to any canned ones, as well as pennies to make versus the several dollars for the canned ones!
Additional gluten free skillet meals:
- My gluten free chili mac is cheesy ground beef and noddle goodness!
- Always popular, the gluten free hamburger helper is a family fav!
- Cuban picadillo combines some unusual ingredients for a stellar results!
- Stove top skillet lasagna is right up my alley!
Cowboy Barbecue Skillet Recipe:
If you make this heart family friendly meal, be sure to come back and leave a comment below!
Cowboy Skillet Casserole
Ingredients
- 8 oz bacon diced (I prefer Trader Joe's Applewood Smoke Nitrate free)
- 1 small onion diced
- 1 pound ground beef
- 2 cans pinto beans or about 3 cups homemade (see how above in post)
- 1 cup favorite barbeque sauce I shared two links to recipes I use above
Instructions
- In a large skillet (we LOVE our cast iron skillet!) over medium heat, brown the bacon.
- Set cooked pieces on some paper towels and discard all but 1 tablespoon of the remaining fat.
- Saute the onions until soft, a couple of minutes.
- Crumble the hamburger in, stirring to break it up.
- When the hamburger is no longer pink, stir in the beans, barbeque sauce, and bacon.
- Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes to meld the flavors.
Nutrition
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I use turkey bacon instead of regular bacon. What would you recommend to use for sautéing?
Any fat will do Monica! Let me know, I have been wanting to try it turkey bacon style and just haven’t braved it yet! Let me know!
I love recipes you can prepare in one skillet – they are perfect for busy autumn days. The flavours in this dish sound terrific – and what a great name!
My mother and I cannot eat beans of any kind besides green beans. We just can’t digest them. Is there anyway to substitute something else? We are also gluten-free.
Hi Jolene1 I would suggest just more hamburger or cut up vegetables (the would need to be sauteed) Or just leave them out entirely!
I made this tonight. I’ve just tasted it and it is delicious. We’ll just put it on bread and eat it with a salad.
It is a simple and pleasing dinner Roberta, so glad you liked it, thank you so much for taking the time to submit feedback!
Thank you for your submission on Nourishing Treasures’ Make Your Own! Monday link-up.
Check back later tonight when the new link-up is running to see if you were one of the top 3 featured posts! 🙂
Hi Tessa,
What a great skillet meal, I just love a recipe like this for those “Busy Days” when we need to keep things moving. Hope you are having a great week and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
this looks scrumptious! thanks for linking with KiK
Tessa, this looks absolutely divine! I love quick and easy meals, and this one falls into that category. For my family, I believe they would enjoy it on top of rice or mashed potatoes with a side of cornbread☺ Thank you for sharing this week in our hop.
Looks good!
Sounds and looks yummy Tessa. I can think of lots of things to put this on and thanks for the bbq sauce links. Always nice to have on hand.
Definitely going to try it. It looks so yummy. 😀
Mmmmm….love one skillet meals! I have a hard core love of Bob’s Red Mill GF Corn Bread Mix and this would be perfect over it. I have a bag of pinto beans that I wasn’t sure what to do with and now I’ve found it!
This looks like my kind of kid-friendly comfort food. You could also serve it atop rice or potato nachos/fried potatoes. My kids will thank you as soon as I put it on our menu. 🙂
oh yum! that looks delicious! hearty and fabulous! thanks for sharing! have a great weekend!
Looks delicious! I look forward to trying it soon!