Daily Favorites: Sloppy Joe's From Scratch

 

For a long time, I wouldn't have considered having sloppy joe's for dinner. It would have sounded like cafeteria food, or some one-note dish from childhood. But I was wrong. These are great. 

Earlier this year, inspired by Babish, I made two batches of sloppy joe's for the boys. The first was Manwich sauce out of a can. Nice flavor but too thin, took a long time to reduce down. The second was mostly bbq sauce with some seasonings. Good but missing that classic sloppy joe flavor. 

Today we made our own sauce and this was the best batch yet. 

I started by browning a pound of 85/15 ground beef. I could have even gone leaner but 85 is a nice sweet spot for flavor, leanness, and price point. I minced a quarter of a large onion, and added when the beef was mostly browned. I was using this recipe as a starting point which called for bell pepper, but I knew the kids wouldn't want that in so I left it out. Generous salt and pepper.

Once the beef was fully cooked through, the onions were getting soft, so I started adding the sauce. A tablespoon and a half of tomato paste. Squirt of ketchup, mustard, two squirts of bbq sauce. Sprinkling of soy sauce (in place of worcestershire). Big pinch of brown sugar. Just a drizzle of water. Then for seasonings went garlic powder, cumin, and smoked paprika. 

Brought it all together and tasted. It was flat. No worries. Another round of salt and pepper. More soy sauce, pinch of brown sugar, garlic and smoked paprika. Tasted again. Seasonings were there but it was missing something. Added more bbq sauce and we've got a winner. (I could have added chili powder, cayenne pepper, or hot sauce but my kids aren't into spicy food yet.)

The #1 thing that makes this dish better than I ever had it growing up is toasted buns. I pretty much always toast my buns now. On some occasions, like for cold cuts, I might like a soft bun. But for sloppy joe's, you absolutely need a good toast on the bun so it doesn't get mushy and fall apart. (Also, it drives me insane that recipes will call for toasting your buns in the same pan, some 20 minutes before the rest of the dish is ready. Nobody wants a cold toasted bun.)

The end result was really delicious. It had some bbq notes but a nice depth of flavor. Felt like a classic sloppy joe but didn't feel like a dish past its prime. Felt like you could order this at a modern street food restaurant. 

A pound of meat easily makes four sloppy joes. We each got an extra scoop of meat at the end and it's just as good without the bun on the plate. 

This took about 25 minutes altogether but it is a one-pan meal so easy clean-up. 

As for the calories, I looked at the package and it says 4 ounces of 85/15 meat was only 230 cals. I probably had at 6-7, but still. Since I'm using no sugar bbq sauce and only a little brown sugar, there's nothing in the sauce to rack up the cals there. With a 160 cal bun, a sandwich alone is probably 500, plus another 100 for a second small scoop of meat.