These Easy Homemade Sloppy Joes are made from scratch with just a few simple ingredients! Great with ground beef, ground turkey and even chicken!
Nothing beats this dish served with fries, for a true diner dish. You can serve corn on the cob, coleslaw, baked potatoes or roasted potatoes as a side as well.
This dish starts with just a few steps that quite possibly will change the way you are cooking ground meat (beef or turkey or even chicken). The secret to making every meal that calls for ground meat flavorful is to saute garlic and onion in olive oil, then adding the meat and infusing it with the flavors. That's my favorite base.
After that, you add the sauce made in 5 minutes in a blender and simmer everything together. The sauce is a blend of peppers and tomatoes with the addition of spices. After trying this recipe, you will never go back to a store-bought Sloppy Joe sauce!
Ingredients:
- ground meat (beef, pork or chicken)
- onion
- garlic
- olive oil
- bell pepper
- crushed tomatoes
- tomato sauce
- ketchup
- brown sugar
- salt and pepper
- Italian seasoning
Instructions:
- Start by making the Sloppy Joe sauce, by blending peppers, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, ketchup and brown sugar in blender or food processor.
- Saute garlic and onion in olive oil, in a pan. Add ground beef and cook until done.
- Season meat mixture.
- Add sauce and stir everything together. Simmer for a few minutes, until bubbly.
- Serve in buns.
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What to serve with Sloppy Joes?
Best tips:
- Fresh peppers make this Sloppy Joe sauce. You can use a mix of fresh and roasted red peppers. I also recommend adding ½ cup of chopped bell pepper to sauteed garlic and onion that will infuse the meat with flavor.
- To make this dish low-carb, skip the sugar and/or use a sugar substitute, like Stevia or Munk Fruit.
- Skip the bun and use Cloud Bread or pile the filling on portobello mushrooms.
- You can also serve the filling with cauliflower rice.
- Use tofu crumbles to make this dish vegan.
More homemade sauce recipes:
If you like this recipe and make it, snap a photo and share it on INSTAGRAM! Tag me @crunchycreamysweet so I can check it out! 😀
Easy Homemade Sloppy Joes
Ingredients
- 1 medium red bell pepper cored, seeds removed
- 1 cup crushed tomatoes
- 8 oz can tomato sauce
- 3 Tablespoons ketchup
- 1 Tablespoon packed brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ cup sweet yellow or red onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¾ teaspoon Italian seasoning
Instructions
- Place peppers, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, brown sugar and ketchup in a blender and blend for 20 seconds, scrape sides of blender, blend 20 more seconds. The sauce should be smooth.
- Heat up oil in a large skillet.
- Add garlic and onion and saute until onion is translucent.
- Add ground beef and cook until done.
- Add salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. Stir in well.
- Add sauce and stir it well.
- Cook on medium heat until bubbly. Lower the heat and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Remove from heat, and let sit for 10 minutes.
- Serve in buns.
Notes
I recommend adding ½ cup of chopped red or green bell pepper and sauteing with garlic and onion.
Nutrition
This post was originally published on August 15th, 2016 and updated on May 24th, 2019.
Lauren says
Sloppy Joes are my kids' favorite meal! I love the homemade sauce
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Thanks, Lauren!
Jenny says
Sloppy joes are one of my FAVORITE sandwiches. I can't wait to try this recipe!!
katerina says
I really love this recipe and I know that my kids will be very happy with it!!
Abeer says
I just showed this to my hubby and told him I am making this for dinner tomorrow. You should have seen the smile on his face! hehehe 😉
Des says
One of my all time favorite meals! I love that you made a homemade version!
Kacey says
I am all about homemade sauces! Such a difference with little effort. Heck, I would not eat sloppy joes as a kid but I have no issues now. Plus, you make them look sooooo good!
Kimberly says
Man, I don't think I can even remember the last time I had sloppy Joe's - somewhere back in childhood. I need to make these happen!
Rachel says
I love a good homemade recipe to replace store-bought sauce! So helpful when trying to avoid extra added yuckiness 🙂 This recipe looks fantastic - thank you for sharing!