If you’re eating from the pantry (as many of us are right now!) or you’re just looking for a frugal meal for your family, we’ve found this Slow Cooker Pinto Beans Hot Dog & Pepper meal to fit the bill. I originally created it because I had two leftover hot dogs to use up, and I wanted to stretch them into a meal instead of just having two people eat them.
A Pantry-Friendly Recipe
However, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the need to hunker down and try to use the food in the house rather than going out to eat or going to the grocery store, this recipe is perfect. It uses a few basic ingredients yet feeds a family of four a complete meal.
Substitutions and Additions
If you wanted to make it more filling, you could serve it over rice.
Also, if you don’t have red or green peppers in the house, feel free to substitute a frozen vegetable or another vegetable that you have in the house. I imagine frozen mixed vegetables or corn would also be good in this recipe.
We don’t like spicy food, but if you do, feel free to add red pepper flakes, chili pepper, and other spicy additions.
Gluten Free, Dairy Free
If you’re gluten free and dairy free, this recipe is perfect for you. (Just make sure the hot dogs don’t contain gluten.) Gluten free and dairy free foods can often be expensive, but not when you find recipes like this one that are naturally free of many allergens.
Slow Cooker Pinto Beans Hot Dogs & Peppers Recipe
This recipe is super simple, and it requires very little from you in the way of ingredients or time spent in the kitchen cooking. (Don’t you just love recipes like that!)

Slow Cooker Pinto Beans Hot Dogs & Peppers Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups dry pinto beans (or 2 cans pinto beans)
- 3 hot dogs diced in small pieces
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 green pepper diced
- 1 red pepper diced
- 1 onion (or 1 TBSP dry onion flakes) diced
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 TBSP cumin
- 2 tsp. oregano
- 1 tsp. salt
Instructions
- Add the beans and water (cover the beans with at least 2 inches of water), and bring the beans to a boil for one minute.
- Turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 60 minutes.
- Drain the beans.
- Put all the ingredients, including the beans in a slow cooker and stir until combined.
- Cook on high for 3 to 4 hours or low for 5 to 6 hours until pinto beans are tender. Enjoy!
Slow Cooker Pinto Beans Hot Dogs & Peppers is a simple but filling meal that your kids will probably enjoy. (Mine did!) After all, what kid doesn’t like hot dogs?
More Pantry-Friendly Recipes
Interested in another frugal, pantry-friendly recipe? Gluten Free Dairy Free Cheeseburger Soup is one of our favorites. (If you don’t have to be gluten free or dairy free, just substitute real cheese and milk. This recipe is also a hit with the kids!)
I shared this post at Tuesday’s Table, Try a New Recipe Tuesday

Nice…frugal and nutritious.
Which child didn’t like it?
The middle one–Peanut Butter & Jelly Girl. 🙂
When I was a child, I hated beans but now since I’m an adult and live in Honduras, I love beans. I think I like refried the best but beans in soup type meals are delish.
Consider yourself hugged,
http://simpleesue.com/try-one-new-recipe-a-week-perfectly-peanut-butter-brownies/
I hated beans as a kid, too. 🙂 I didn’t start liking them until I was in my 20s.
Good on you! Scrimp a little now and enjoy the bounty of your CSA 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing this on Waste Not Want Not Wednesday, I’ve pinned it.
Also, if you haven’t already, I’d like to invite you to link up to my new GF & OAS Bloggers page – you don’t have to be gluten free to link up, just sometimes post GF stuff like this 🙂 http://www.poorandglutenfree.blogspot.com/p/links.html
This looks so delicious, different from the typical hot dogs and beans. Thanks for linking up with “Try a New Recipe Tuesday.” I hope you will be able to join us again this week. 🙂
Yum! Looks tasty and love that it’s not loaded with tons of ingredients. Thank you for linking up to Delicious Dish Tuesday! We’d love to see another share this week! 🙂