Texas Cowboy Stew

on Jan 04, 2024, Updated Jan 29, 2024

Texas Cowboy Stew is tasty and loaded with ground beef, bacon, kielbasa sausage plus beans and veggies. This hearty & delicious stew recipe is easy to make and great for feeding a crowd. Perfect for a busy weeknight dinner!

Nothing hits the spot during the winter like a hot delicious stew recipe! A nice warm stew makes for great comfort food when it’s cold outside and you need something to fill you up. We’re big fans of easy stew recipes: some of our favorites are our tasty Slow Cooker Beef Stew and our tender Chicken Stew.

Beef stews got to be some of the best stew recipes you can make. If you’ve got some leftover ground beef or stew meat sitting around, you can make something delicious out of it easy! We wanted to mix things up a little bit with our next pot of stew, so we made it up as this Texas Cowboy Stew.

Cowboy stew recipes will include all sorts of different ingredients depending on who you ask. Back in the day, cowboys would kind of just throw whatever they had on hand into a pot and make a quick and filling stew out of it. You could do that too, but a lot of the recipes nowadays have a few things everyone agrees upon.

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For starters, almost any cowboy recipe is going to have some Kielbasa sausage in it to bring some smokiness and spice to your finished stew. On top of that, you’ll need some beans too: they go a long way in making this Quick Cowboy Stew flavorful, hearty and filling. Combine all of that with a couple of canned foods and some classic stew ingredients and you’ve got a tasty comfort meal that’s dead simple to make!

Why you’ll love this easy Texas Cowboy Stew recipe
Texas Cowboy Stew Ingredients
How to make Cowboy Stew
Substitutions
Variations
Storage / Freezing
Top Tips
Best sides to Serve with Cowboy Stew
Other Soups and Stews
Texas Cowboy Stew Recipe

Why you’ll love this easy Texas Cowboy Stew recipe

If you’re looking for a rustic stew recipe packed with tasty ingredients, made as one-pot meal then this Texas Cowboy Stew is a great pick. Adding three types of meat: bacon, ground beef and Kielbasa goes a long way in adding tons of flavor to this easy stew recipe.
Beef stew is a great way to use up a lot of leftover ingredients you have sitting around and Cowboy Stew isn’t any different! If you’ve got some ground beef taking up room in the freezer or too many cans in the pantry, this is a great way to use some of that up.
In the middle of the fall and winter months, there’s nothing better than a warm and filling stew recipe. This stew recipe fits that bill perfectly, and it’ll go great with a side of good crusty bread, Homemade Cornbread or served up in some Bread Bowls!

Texas Cowboy Stew Ingredients

You’ll need a good few ingredients for this Texas Cowboy Stew recipe but, trust us, they all come together to make this so tasty and filling! You probably have some of these ingredients in your pantry or freezer already but, if you need to run to the store, here’s what you’ll need:

Bacon – We use this nice thick-cut bacon so we can render the fat off of it. Using that bacon fat for cooking the rest of the stew adds so much flavor to our finished stew!
Kielbasa Sausage – This is a type of Polish sausage that you can probably find at your local grocery store. It’s got this nice, smoky flavor that’s going to go great with our stew recipe.
Ground Beef – Since we’re going to be using a bit of bacon fat, you can probably go with a lean ground beef for this recipe. We went with this 85/15 blend.
Onion
Garlic – Minced garlic from the jar will be fine here.
Flour
Spices – Since all of these ingredients are bringing plenty of flavor to our dish, we can go pretty simple here. We just used some salt, pepper, chili powder, and smoked paprika. Add a pinch of ground cumin if you would like an additional smokey flavor.
Worcestershire Sauce
Canned Diced Tomatoes
Canned Kidney Beans– consider using ranch style beans or even baked beans
Canned Diced Green Chile Peppers – these add a bit of heat
Canned Corn – Whole kernel corn for this recipe- don’t grabbed canned cream corn by mistake!
Potatoes – We went with a couple of russet potatoes. I have used yukon golds in the past and they were fine too!

See recipe card for quantities.

How to make Cowboy Stew

Even though there’s quite a few ingredients in our Texas Cowboy Stew, it’s still pretty easy to make. Here’s all you need to do to make this tasty stew recipe for yourself:

To a large pot or dutch oven over medium/medium-high heat, add your chopped bacon. Cook until browned and crispy before removing to a paper towel lined plate.

Add your sliced smoked sausage to pot with the bacon drippings and cook until slices are browned on both sides. Remove to the same plate with the bacon.

Ground beef,, onions, garlic and woosteshire in a red dutch oven.

Add ground beef, diced onion, and minced garlic to the pot and cook until beef is no longer pink. If using an extra fatty ground beef, consider draining off some of the excess fat before moving forward.

Spices added to ground beef mixture for stew.

To the ground beef mixture, add flour, salt & pepper, chili powder, paprika, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir briefly to mix the spices around and let cook for a minute or two.

Remaining ingredients add to pot for stew.

Finally, add the canned tomatoes, kidney beans, diced green chiles, and corn along with their liquids. Add peeled and diced potatoes, cooked bacon and sausage, and some water before bringing to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and let simmer for around 1 hour or until potatoes are tender. Remember to stir occasionally.

Substitutions

When you’re making a recipe like this Texas Cowboy stew where there’s a lot of ingredients, there’s plenty of room to swap ingredients out and make substitutions. Here’s just a few of the substitutions you can make if need to:

Kielbasa – While we think that this Polish sausage is going to taste the best in your finished stew, there are other sausages out there you can try. Andouille sausage is going to be your closest substitute- though it will have a bit more spice and heat to it. For even more spicy flavor, you can use a chorizo sausage instead.
Ground Beef – I used 80/20 ground beef in my recipe. You could also use ground turkey or ground chicken but it may change the flavor profile just a bit.
Kidney Beans – There’s a lot of debate when it comes to kidney beans or pinto beans for chili and stew recipes like this. We’ve always preferred kidney beans: they seem a lot meatier and dense than pinto beans. Still, if you prefer pinto beans or black beans, feel free to use them instead of kidney- or maybe even use both!
Russet Potatoes – We went with these russet potatoes because they were what we had on hand. Of course, there’s tons of other potatoes you can use- some of which might even be better for stew recipes! One of the best potatoes for stews is probably Yukon Gold potatoes and red potatoes are another solid pick.
Canned Corn– You could go with a can of mixed vegetables if you would like.
Tomatoes– you could use just basic canned diced tomatoes or consider using a can of Rotel.
Water– if you have beef broth or even chicken broth on hand and would like a bit more flavor, go ahead and use it instead of the water.

Variations

As we’ve made it, this Easy Cowboy Stew Recipe is hearty, tasty, and easy to make. Still, if you want a couple of ways to shake this recipe up, here’s a couple ways you could:

Slow Cooker Cowboy Stew – We made this stew up pretty quick, but if you wanted to cook it low and slow, you could make it in a Crockpot. Cook the bacon and sausage like before and brown the ground beef before assembling everything in the slow cooker. Cook on high for up to 4 hours or cook on low for up to 8 hours.
Spicy Cowboy Stew – If you feel like this recipe was missing a little something, it might be that extra kick of spice or heat. In that case, consider subbing the kielbasa out for chorizo and the diced green chiles out for something like diced jalapenos. Add a glug of hot sauce and/or some cayenne to your spice mix and you’ll have a nice spicy stew in no time!

Storage / Freezing

Storage: This Texas Cowboy Stew should keep well, whether you store it in the fridge or in the freezer. To keep it in the fridge, let it cool before transferring to an airtight container. Close it up and keep in the fridge for 3-4 days

Freezing: If you want to store it long-term, you can also freeze Cowboy Stew. Transfer the cooled stew to freezer bags or any other airtight container- for best results, you want something you can squeeze the air out of. Keep frozen for 2-3 months for best texture and flavor.

Top Tips

Be sure you are including all of the liquid from the cans of beans, tomatoes, chilis and veggies.
If your stew seems to be a bit thick to your liking, add in a bit more water or broth.
Sprinkle a bit of fresh parsley before serving for a bit of added color.