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Celebrate the warm weather with a good ol’ fashioned BBQ! Fire up the grill, add your favorite meats and veggies, and prepare all of your favorite side dishes!

This hearty BBQ Pork Rind Cheesy Cowboy Casserole is the perfect way to add some southern flavors to your next BBQ gathering!

I was asked to prepare Southern Recipe’s BBQ Pork Rind Cheesy Cowboy Casserole for a news segment that aired on NBC in the Wausau, Wisconsin area for a 4th of July segment about get-togethers! Start your day off with my favorite 4th of July Breakfast Muffins, then fire up the grill and enjoy these keto friendly Chicken Skewer Kabobs and this Cowboy Casserole. End the day with these Fire Cracker Sugar Cookies and American Flag Fruit Pie for dessert!

stephanie bruce in kitchen preparing casserole for 4th of july

I always love these cooking segment opportunities as they definitely put me out of my comfort zone…for just a few minutes, but help me grow in so many other ways!

I never imagined that this is something I would do…in fact, if you told me in High School that I would prepare recipes for LIVE TV, I would have probably thrown up. Ha!

This segment for the BBQ Pork Rind Cheesy Cowboy Casserole was filmed via zoom in my own kitchen. In the past, when I filmed live TV segments for NBC Charlotte (North Carolina) I always went into the studio and prepared the recipe alongside the news anchor. So this was a different experience and actually fun to be able to do it from home! (barefoot! ? )

Here’s What You Need!

1 lb ground beef, browned
1/4 c diced onion
1 can cream of mushroom
2 cans diced tomatoes, with juice
1 can corn, drained
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained
1 c BBQ Pork Rinds, finely ground
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 c Mexican cheese

BBQ Pork Rind Cheesy Cowboy Casserole ingredients

Oven vs Crock Pot

The best part is, this recipe can be made in a crock pot or baked in a casserole dish in the oven! I prefer making it the crock pot because I just dump, stir, cover and get on with my day!

Cooking Temperatures and Lengths

Crock Pot: High (300° F) = 4-5 hours Low (190° F) = 7-8 hours
Oven = 350° F 3 – 3.5 hours

I love to serve this BBQ Pork Rind Cheesy Cowboy Casserole with tortilla chips and sour cream! Something about tortilla chips and sour cream, just makes everything taste better! Plus, it helps make this casserole a whole heck of a lot easier to eat!

Let’s Make It Together!

Behind The Scenes Sneak Peek

If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know that I don’t always like to sugar coat things and make them always look perfect. Ya’ll life is not perfect and it’s messy. And that is OK!! Embrace it and be proud of what you have accomplished and keep trekking forward one step at a time!

As I mentioned earlier, this TV segment was actually filmed with me at my home…my “in the middle of renovation because of a lightning strike/house fire, kitchen”…I’m definitely not going to lie. I may have been a little irritable that…

the cabinet doors are still not hung on the very top cabinets
the doors are not hung under the kitchen sink
the range hood isn’t built
the wooden shelves (in-between the cabinets) are not built
the tile backsplash isn’t up
the pot filler isn’t up

Behind the scenes at Gathered In The Kitchen

p.s. do you like how I had to prop up my computer? HA! Yep, those are shoe boxes and ice skating boxes with rags to level it out all on top of a wooden stool! Keeping it real for you guys!

Don’t ever be discouraged by all of the perfect, beautiful, never messy photos you see online or on social media. If you zoom out…often times, there’s always real life happening there!

Sometimes house renovations just stink because they take a while…and if this was just a kitchen reno happening at our house, I think we would have finished already. But…there was a whole heck of a lot more that needed to be done. Ugh. But again, one step forward always gets you closer to your goals and end result than not doing it at all!

Happy holidays my friends!