Here’s a weekday quickie that satisfies all of your childhood memories of sloppy joes, or as we used to call them, whimpies. My mom makes the best whimpies, but these come pretty close. Because of my excessive baking, we try to cut back in other aspects of our diet, and we’ve really fallen in love with ground turkey over the years. It’s versatile, lean, and delicious when seasoned well. Like chicken, you can pretty much do anything with it- meatballs, meatsauce, chili, meatloaf, or today’s sloppy joes.
*I’ll be back eventually to show you how to make some delicious homemade buns for these sloppies.
Turkey Sloppy Joes
Makes lots for two people plus leftovers
Olive oil, for sauteing
20 oz (1¼ lbs) ground turkey
Kosher salt and pepper to taste
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium bell pepper, diced (reds are my favorite, but all we had today was green)
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons worcestershire sauce
Dashes hot sauce, to taste
Hamburger or hotdog buns, for serving
Cook the turkey and vegetables. Coat a large saute pan with olive oil and heat it over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the turkey and break it up with a wooden spoon, seasoning it generously with salt and pepper. Don’t be shy! Turkey needs lots of seasoning. Brown the turkey until there’s almost no more pink. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic and saute until the vegetables are nice and soft and the turkey is fully browned, about 7-10 minutes.
Add the rest of the sloppy joe ingredients. Add the tomato paste and chili powder and saute for another 3 minutes to cook the tomato paste a bit. This develops yummier tomato flavor. Add the rest of the ingredients (besides the buns, duh) and mix to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings. This recipe is very forgiving- you can absolutely add more ketchup, barbecue sauce, hot sauce, brown sugar, etc. to your liking. Reduce the heat and simmer the mixture for 5-10 minutes, just to meld all of the ingredients.
Serve the sloppy joes on hamburger buns (or hotdog buns if you’re like us and that’s all you have). Complete your dinner with some potato chips, because honestly, is it really a sandwich without some kind of fried potato on the side?
Enjoy these sweet, spicy, tangy, sloppy sandwiches!
-Jess
