Homemade Sloppy Joes for a Family Friendly Dinner Foundation
Homemade Sloppy Joes for a Family Friendly Dinner Foundation was made possible as part of a Bow of Bronze campaign. All opinions are my own.
While reading through a file on kitchen detailing in The HomeMaker’s Mentor, I was pleasantly surprised by finding some recipes.
Homemade Sloppy Joes was the one that really caught my eye. And, I knew I wanted to make it as a foundation for a family dinner.
(Read my official review of The HomeMaker’s Mentor!)
Homemade Sloppy Joes: Fantastic Comfort Food
There are some family favorites for dinner that qualify for comfort food. Sloppy Joes is one of them.
Fries of any sort (store-bought or homemade steak fries) along with a vegetable complete this simple dinner.
For the first batch, I went with the ‘main’ recipe guidelines that start with 3 pounds of ground beef.
If you do not use beef in your recipes, feel free to substitute ground chicken or turkey (or possibly a vegetarian alternative product.)
The final product will taste a little different, but it will still be yummy.
As this is a crockpot recipe, I was able to do my prep work (browning the meat, chopping the vegetables, and assembling everything into the crockpot) in the morning before heading to work.
How freeing to know we had the foundation for our meal cooking all day and ready to be consumed.
Here’s how it looked right before we served up dinner:
Many thanks to Jim Erksine for granting permission to share the recipe with my readers.
The ingredients listed match the original, but I changed the directions a little bit and offered a substitution I made for the initial go around.
Also, on subsequent meals, we decided to add a bit of Italian Seasoning which we like. And, we cut the amount of ketchup from 4 cups to 3 cups.
I’ve since updated the recipe to reflect those changes.
I know this dish will be made several times this winter for my family and quite possibly for a few ‘potluck’ meals with the parish youth group.
Homemade Sloppy Joes
Sloppy Joe meat made in a crockpot for a simple dinner. Serve on your favorite bun or on top of rice, noodles or fries.
Ingredients
- 3 pounds of ground meat (beef, chicken, turkey, venison)
- 2 tsp. salt
- 3/4 tsp. ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or a few cloves of garlic, minced)
- 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
- 3 cups ketchup
- 1 cup tomato sauce OR crushed tomatoes
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1/3 cup diced green pepper
- 2 tsp Italian Seasoning
Instructions
- Brown your meat until all pink is gone. Drain any excess liquid or fat and then place into a crock pot.
- In the same pan used to brown your meat, you can saute the onions and green pepper for a few minutes and then add that to the crock pot.
- All remaining ingredients go into the crock pot, stirring to mix well.
- Cook on low heat for 5+ hours.
- Serve on buns.
Notes
I was out of tomato sauce as called for in the original recipe, I substituted half a can of tomato paste with approximately 6 ounces of water.
Alternatively, you can use crushed tomatoes.
Alternative serving ideas would be to serve this over pasta or another grain of choice. I've also had someone tell me they like to eat sloppy joes dip like with chips.
Does your family enjoy sloppy joes?
What easy meals do you make to feed the crowds?
This post was originally published on October 13, 2013, and has since been updated.
I just had sloppy joes from a can but I want to make mine fresh. I would love to see if this is the one for us.
This sounds good! My hubby normally turns his nose up when I mention sloppy joes, maybe I’ll try again with this recipe. Thanks for sharing!
One of our faves 🙂 I use cream of tomato soup and bar-b-q sauce.
I haven’t had sloppy joes in years. I will have to give this recipe an try. Of course . . . I think the reason why I haven’t made them was because as a child, my father used way too many onions which I dislike. So, I will most likely eliminate them. Now I know what I can do with the ground beef I am thawing. Thank you for sharing this recipe. It looks good!
we eat sloppy joes every few weeks,but have never tried the crock pot. I’ll definitely try this version.thanks for sharing.
The sloppy joes do look yummy! Thanks for sharing.
I already printed out the recipe! We love having sloppy joes, but don;t like all the ‘mystery unpronounceable ingredients’ in the canned versions!
Carol,
This version tastes SO much better than the canned versions. I hope you and your family enjoy it.