Homemade Sloppy Joes from scratch, made with ground beef and pork breakfast sausage ~ like mom made growing up but even better. Easy weeknight comfort food!
Does anyone, besides my mom, make sloppy joes anymore? Manwich came out when I was a kid and she would make that. Didn't like or dislike, they were okay. Over the years, she has passed on homemade sloppy joe recipes to me. She seems to always be discovering new ways to make them.
So I was digging around in my messy recipe drawer and found a few. This sloppy joe recipe is the bomb. They are so retro to me, and when I do make them, everyone loves them and wants seconds.
INGREDIENTS
I have no idea where my mom got this recipe. I think maybe she tore it out of my newspaper when she was visiting, either in St. Paul or St. Louis. This recipe has a lot of the traditional, familiar ingredients one would find in a sloppy joe:
- Catsup, yellow mustard, tomato sauce
- Onion, green pepper, garlic
- Brown sugar, Worcestershire
But this recipe also has breakfast-style ground pork sausage along with the ground beef. Never heard of that and I found that intriguing. This is the third sloppy joe recipe I have tried that she has given me, and this was by far the best one.
I'm pretty sure the recipe was for a slow cooker, but I made the version on the stovetop, per my mom's instructions over the phone. They gave it both ways in the recipe she had. While my mom insists on sesame seed hamburger buns for sloppy joes, I like lightly buttered and toasted brioche buns. Uh, wow, is all I can say.
I don't need to tell you how much Meathead loved these sloppy joes. I had to stop him from eating too much so we would have leftovers.
What goes with sloppy joes? Potato chips of course! That was dinner the other night, in front of the TV watching football. Well, Meathead was watching football. I was enjoying my sloppy joe and thinking of my mom, and missing her. Enjoy, Kelly🍴🐦
SLOPPY JOE MACARONI CASSEROLE
Another easy dinner idea is to use the sloppy joe mixture in a casserole like this:
Reserve 1½ cups sloppy joe mixture for another use (sandwiches!). Add 12 ounces cooked elbow macaroni to the pot and combine. Pour sloppy joe/mac mixture into 9" X 13" baking dish. Top with 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese and bake in 400º oven for 15 - 20 minutes, until cheese is melted and lightly browned and casserole is bubbly hot.
My other favorite sloppy joe recipe from mom are these Turkey Sloppy Joes made with bottled chili sauce.
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UPDATED: Originally posted in January, 2016. Spruced up a bit to make it more user friendly and helpful in September, 2020, with no changes to the original recipe.
Sloppy Joes
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds lean ground beef (I like ground sirloin)
- 1 16-ounce package ground pork sausage, breakfast-style
- 1 small onion, chopped
- ½ green pepper, chopped
- 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup catsup
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a large pot, crumble ground beef and sausage, add chopped onion and green pepper. Turn heat on to medium high and brown well, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, about 10 minutes. Drain grease well and return meat mixture to pot.
- Stir in remaining ingredients, bring to a boil and then turn down to low and cover pot. Simmer for 30 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally. Taste for salt.
- Serve on sesame seed hamburger buns, or better yet, toasted brioche buns. And potato chips.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Robin
Tuesday 15th of March 2022
Making these and noticed that in the beginning you me tonight garlic and there's a bulb of garlic in picture but it's not in recipe!! I'm going to shake some garlic powder in...
Kelly
Wednesday 30th of March 2022
Hi Robin, thanks for catching that! My mom always puts garlic in everything so I put one clove of minced garlic in this sloppy joe recipe she gave me, even though the original recipe she gave me has no garlic 🙃
Dan
Saturday 16th of July 2016
At the end of Step 1, you write, “Drain grease well and return meat mixture to the pot.”
In draining the grease well, do you intend that I use my fat separater and return the broth to the pot with the meat mixture, or do you discard all the liquid from the browning process, returning only the drained meat to the pot?
Dan Friend of Jill and Jim in California
P.S. I love everything you have posted. Fun and delicious (and also pretty.) Your web site is one of my “staple cookbooks.” This must be my fifth go at your Sloppy Joes. The best.
Kelly
Monday 18th of July 2016
Hi Dan. No, I do not use a fat separator but I think you could if you want. See how much you get and you could certainly add de-fatted juices back in, good flavor there. I always discard it all, seems mostly fatty to me from the breakfast sausage.
I'm so glad you enjoy the blog, I really enjoy sharing on it.
Cheers, Kelly
Dan
Tuesday 23rd of February 2016
WOW!!! The Sloppy Joe recipe is so classic. It’s archetypal. The individual voice of each ingredient blends into one choir. My search for the definitive Sloppy Joe is finally over. No need to look further. My wife loved it over a baked potato. Thank you for the gift. Dan (Friend of Quinn and Jim.)
Kelly
Tuesday 23rd of February 2016
Thank you so much! Glad you liked. Yeah, pretty classic Americana cooking, nothing quite like a good sloppy joe. (I love Jill and Jim, too!)
Sebastiana
Tuesday 23rd of February 2016
Thanks for sharing the receipe. Sorry for my ignorance but wht is catsup? :) Also, the tomato sauce, is it the regular one or with herbs? Thanks!
Kelly
Tuesday 23rd of February 2016
Hi. It's regular tomato sauce. Catsup or ketchup is a tomato condiment, by the mustard in the grocery store.
Diana
Saturday 13th of February 2016
Don and Matt loved these...good alternative on those winter days when you do not want to grill hamburgers!
Kelly
Wednesday 17th of February 2016
Good to hear, we had some in freezer for a couple last minute meals. So good!