Recipes, Photography, Musings

My Favorite Sloppy Joes

This is a recipe I fall back on time after time, and it has never disappointed me.  The meat comes out tangy, moist, and delicious, and it is so easy to make.  Your crockpot does most of the work while you are off doing other things!  Served with a salad or a side of coleslaw, it’s a great summer meal that you can keep in your back pocket, and pull out when you have a day off and want to spend the afternoon away from the kitchen.

sloppy joeJust put the recipe together in the crockpot, and head out into the beautiful afternoon.  When you get home, dinner is waiting.  If you are feeding a crowd, the recipe can easily be doubled. If you have a non-meat-eater in your family, you can always make a quick portabella mushroom burger for them (that’s what I did for my daughter last night)!  I have been using this recipe for years, and it is adapted from my Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook, edited by Dawn Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good.  It uses very basic ingredients, is definitely easy to make, and is definitely a crowd-pleaser.  And sometimes, that is exactly the kind of recipe I need.

I hope you all had a good Fourth of July holiday.  We didn’t go away, so we had a sort-of staycation.  We went canoeing on a river nearby, and that was definitely an adventure.  I have never seen the river so crowded!  There were more people floating down on tubes than I ever could have imagined.  It definitely put our steering abilities to the test!  And little did we know we would have a large audience of cheering tubers as we tried to navigate a mini rapids! Maybe not a peaceful canoe trip, but definitely a memorable challenge! Later that night, my husband made a bonfire in our fire pit, and we made s’mores, and watched fireworks at a nearby park the previous night.  I am definitely feeling the good summertime vibes.  I just love being outside in the evenings, watching the sun set. My son took the photo below on my phone while we were waiting for fireworks to start over Wolf Lake.  It has kind of grainy texture, but it makes me think of an impressionistic painting, and captures the sleepy, dreamy feeling of watching the sun set.

sunset over lakeI hope you all have a great weekend! I am sharing this delicious recipe over at Angie’s Fiesta Friday, co-hosted this week by Petra @ Food Eat Love and Laura @ Feast Wisely.

My Favorite Sloppy Joes

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound of ground beef
  • 1/2 cup of onion, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup of ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of chili sauce
  • 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon of mustard
  • 1 tablespoon of vinegar
  • hamburger buns

Directions:

Brown the meat and onion in a large saucepan.  Using a slotted spoon, spoon the meat mixture into your crockpot, trying to leave most of the fat in the saucepan to discard.  Place the rest of the ingredients in the crockpot and stir to combine.  Cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.  Serve on buns with a salad and/or coleslaw. Enjoy!

This recipe is adapted from Fix-It and Forget-It, edited by Dawn Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good.

 

8 Comments

  1. Laura @ Feast Wisely

    Thanks for sharing at Fiesta Friday – what a burger and so good that it’s a tried and tested recipe – they’re always the best!

    • Jenny

      Thank you Laura, and thanks for co-hosting Fiesta Friday this week!

  2. Amanda | What's Cooking

    This looks so good. I make a plant based version of this and it’s yummy. Love the good old fashioned bun and the spices here. Your canoe trip sounds great smores and all. M craving a smore. We did the same… A little kayaking, which was so beautiful worth the loons until a torrential downpour at sundown which turned pretty scary very fast, but we made it out! Xo

    • Jenny

      Thank you, Amanda! I’m glad you made it out safely from your kayaking trip! We went kayaking earlier in the summer and it was much more peaceful than our canoe trip. Lots of birds and natural beauty. I would love to see a loon–it’s been awhile. I hope you are well! Xoxo

  3. Jhuls

    I have seen sloppy joes and they contain a lot of ingredients. I love the simplicity and the short list of ingredients! Yum! Thanks for sharing!

    • Jenny

      Thank you Jhuls, that’s what I like about this recipe too. It comes in really handy sometimes! 🙂

  4. Angie | Fiesta Friday

    Well now I want sloppy joes, haven’t had in a long time. Probably because my daughter shuns ground meat. That’s right, blame it on the daughter ? Good ol sloppy joes, you can always count on them, right?!

    • Jenny

      Thanks, Angie! Yes you can always count on sloppy joes, especially when you can’t think of anything to make for dinner! My daughter shuns them too, but sometimes it’s worth it to make the others happy, and I enjoy them too. 🙂

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