Sloppy Joes
Beef mince cooked down in a sweet-sharp tomato sauce and spooned onto a soft bun, engineered to be eaten with both hands and several napkins.
Photograph credit: Sloppy joe sandwich with French fries by jeffreyw · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The sauce needs both sugar and vinegar in balance — the sweetness alone reads as tinned spaghetti, the vinegar alone as a bad barbecue sauce. Cooking the mince until the water has gone and the meat is actually browning, rather than stewing grey, is what gives the sandwich savour instead of just sweetness.
Photograph credit: Sloppy joe sandwiches by jeffreyw · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The Method for Sloppy Joes
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Heat the oil in a wide pan over high heat. Add the mince in one layer and leave it undisturbed for 4 minutes to take colour, then break it up and cook until the liquid has evaporated and it sizzles rather than bubbles.
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Push the meat aside, add the onion and pepper, and cook 6 minutes until softened.
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Add the garlic for 1 minute, then the tomato purée and cook 2 minutes until it darkens.
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Add the passata, vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire, mustard, paprika, salt, pepper and stock.
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Simmer 15 minutes uncovered, stirring now and then, until thick enough to mound on a spoon.
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Taste and adjust — a little more vinegar if it is flat, a little more sugar if it is sharp.
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Spoon generously into toasted buttered buns and serve immediately with pickles.
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A Few Pointers
- Brown the mince properly. Grey mince makes a sweet sandwich with no depth.
- Thick enough to sit on a spoon, or it runs straight out of the bun.
- Toast and butter the buns — it waterproofs them for a minute or two longer.
Common Substitutions & Variations
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serve It With
Dill pickles · Crisps or fries · A cold lager
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Buttermilk Biscuits, New York Bagels, Skillet Cornbread.
Keeping and Reheating
The filling refrigerates 4 days and freezes 3 months. Reheat with a splash of stock.
Sloppy Joes Nutrition Facts
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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