Sloppy Joe, an All-American Homemade Classic

Behold the Sloppy Joe, browned beef, glistening with tangy red sauce that sinks into the spongy bun, rendering the bread much more delicious. It’s a mess to eat, and the enjoyment of the Sloppy Joe depends on the quality of the sauce. But even if you go beyond Manwich for the sauce (and you really should), the Sloppy Joe is an unabashedly unpretentious sandwich.

The Sloppy Joe is in line of descent from loose meat sandwiches sold at places like the Iowa-based Maid-Rite chain. However, unlike Maid-Rite’s under-seasoned ground beef or the pretty much un-seasoned ground beef on many Detroit Coney Dogs, the Sloppy Joe is a mouthful of flavor.

Sloppy Joes are quintessential all-American comfort food, simple, tasty, and almost never found outside the home. The Dictionary of American Slang defines the Sloppy Joe not as a food but as a “restaurant or lunch counter serving cheap food quickly.” A lunch counter or diner seems like the right place to look for Sloppy Joes, yet one rarely finds Sloppy Joes on any menu, anywhere.

Recently, we (meaning Carolyn) made a batch of Sloppy Joes using a homemade sauce (ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, chili powder, garlic, black pepper and brown sugar) and 85% lean ground beef. You can use a lean meat with Sloppy Joes and still have a moist and delicious sandwich thanks to the sauce. We used a Whole Foods brioche bun, which proved the appropriately soft and absorbent delivery system for the deliciously messy.

Like many homemade classics, the Sloppy Joe is open to infinite variation; a neighbor of ours uses chicken gumbo in hers, which I find hard to imagine but am eager to try.

Unabashed plug: Roadhouse "Original Recipe" Bar-B-Que Sauce makes a brilliant Sloppy Joe, good for all ages. If your palate is a bit more sophisticated, mix in any of our other three varieties ("Texas Tango": Medium heat, complex Tex-Mex flavor notes; "Hot, Sweet & Tangy": starts off with the sweet & tangy followed by a pleasing after burn; or "Southern Sunset": our tribute to the pantheon of Southern BBQ Sauces, including the vinegar and mustard based versions, all in one bottle) to give your Joes a more grown up flavor profile.

There, I've said it, and I'm not ashamed.

Buddy

In our household we make a Filipino dish called Beef Giniling. The first time I ate it at a friend's, I thought it was sloppy joe with carrots in it. It is--fry up some minced garlic and onions, add beef to brown along with a good dose of soy sauce (and sometimes Shaoxing cooking wine). Once cooked through, add some pureed tomatoes or tomato paste + water, then add whatever vegetables you're trying to get your child to eat--typically carrots, potatoes, maybe radish. I've added bell peppers to bring it closer in line to sloppy joe. Some folks add peas, but that's a legume too far for us. Served not with bread, of course, but a pile of rice. Oddly enough, this is the rare Filipino dish that is *less* sweet than I'd expect.

[Edited to add: I'd post a picture, but it's become far too tedious to post from Google Photos, a major reason I post less frequently...]

mtgl wrote:[Edited to add: I'd post a picture, but it's become far too tedious to post from Google Photos, a major reason I post less frequently...]

Why not upload a picture directly to LTH. Initially I could not get it to work, though I have since been able to make it work.

“a neighbor of ours uses chicken gumbo in hers, which I find hard to imagine but am eager to try.”

The use of Chicken Gumbo Soup appears as early as 1970 in a Campbell’s cook book but I suspect it really goes back earlier to the 1950’s where companies sought to reduce housewife’s time by using prepared foods in various recipes.
My wife made this for our family in the 1960’s and it is staple in our home even after all these years.-Richard

budrichard wrote:I suspect it really goes back earlier to the 1950’s where companies sought to reduce housewife’s time by using prepared foods in various recipes.

Set the way back machine to World War I, when the US government underwrote cookbooks using canned goods to whip up a quick dinner. They needed female labor outside of the home to deal with war related industrial efforts.

Somewhere I have one of these government issued cookbooks.

Regards,
Cathy2

I lived in France (west 'burbs of Paris) from age 8 to 13, and I would get my mom to make sloppy joes on fresh french baguette from the boulangerie

budrichard wrote:The use of Chicken Gumbo Soup appears as early as 1970 in a Campbell’s cook book

Not really a sloppy joe guy but the use of chicken gumbo sounded intriguing, so I googled.
Chicken Gumbo Sloppy Joes

Campbells has a 17 sloppy joe recipes from picante to pizza.
Link

Doubt I'll ever make Chicken Gumbo Sloppy Joe, or any sloppy joe for that matter, but I find the thread interesting nonetheless.

Cathy2 wrote:

mtgl wrote:[Edited to add: I'd post a picture, but it's become far too tedious to post from Google Photos, a major reason I post less frequently...]

Why not upload a picture directly to LTH. Initially I could not get it to work, though I have since been able to make it work.

Same resolution issues apply, and resizing isn't really a thing anymore. I could take pictures farther out and crop them down, but the results there aren't worth posting. Scrapped a few posts recently on account of this, particularly ones on Max's Filipino restaurant and on Big Boss But all that is for other threads.

GWiv, you beat me to it, was just about to post link for the recipe.

G Wiv wrote:Chicken Gumbo Sloppy Joes

David, your sloppy joe picture is a thing of beauty and it makes my lunchtime salad seem extra dull today.

My Mom made sloppy joes using Heinz Chili Sauce. (Saute chopped onion, add ground beef, brown and drain, add sauce and heat through. These are so easy, yet I rarely make them and they remain one of my childhood favorites.
When I was at a friend's house in grade school, I was surprised to find her Mom made sloppy joes so differently. Her Mom added diced celery and the sauce was completely different (less sweet, more mustard flavor).

Will be fun to read the variations on this classic.

My CSB about Sloppy Joes.

1971 or 2, Northern Bavaria in Germany. Went to small place on an American family housing complex near a large American base. Most of the people who ate there were young officers, early 20’s. The cooks were German, the bartenders was Polish but they all tried to cater to American tastes. Come in one day for lunch and the special was Sloppy Joes. Almost everyone ordered it. Out came chopped ham and pickles, held together with a sauce that seemed combo of Mayo and Miracle Whip on a brochen (hard roll). Many refused to eat it. I did and it was OK.

Seems the cook was named Joe and it was sloppy so he named it after himself.

I love sloppy joes. Have not made it for ages. I have my own recipe but I need to find it. A point of interest is the area I grew up in was famous for serving sloppy joes at school. Here is the recipe that has a kind of cult following.

http://lostrecipesfound.com/franklin-pa ... oppy-joes/

The sloppy joe with chicken gumbo soup sounds weird but intriguing. Not something I'd think of when the thought of sloppy joes come to mind but there are many recipes for this version on the internet.

wesuilmo wrote:My CSB about Sloppy Joes.

1971 or 2, Northern Bavaria in Germany. Went to small place on an American family housing complex near a large American base. Most of the people who ate there were young officers, early 20’s. The cooks were German, the bartenders was Polish but they all tried to cater to American tastes. Come in one day for lunch and the special was Sloppy Joes. Almost everyone ordered it. Out came chopped ham and pickles, held together with a sauce that seemed combo of Mayo and Miracle Whip on a brochen (hard roll). Many refused to eat it. I did and it was OK.

Seems the cook was named Joe and it was sloppy so he named it after himself.

The explanation for why this Teutonic translation of the All-American Sloppy Joe was so named seems reasonable, but what's most interesting to me is that people refused to eat it. The sandwich as described seems perfectly acceptable (save for maybe the Miracle Whip), but it's not what's expected, so it disappoints. When you're dealing with a food item so drenched in nostalgia as this one is, you have to stick pretty close to the paradigmatic preparation (ground beef, BBQ sauce, at least) or people will object. I totally get that.

David Hammond wrote:A lunch counter or diner seems like the right place to look for Sloppy Joes, yet one rarely finds Sloppy Joes on any menu, anywhere.

A notable exception is the 'wild boar sloppy joe' at Longman & Eagle that has been on the menu as long as I can remember.

Wild Boar Sloppy Joe, Crispy Onion & Sage, Jalapeno, Fries

David Hammond wrote:When you're dealing with a food item so drenched in nostalgia as this one is, you have to stick pretty close to the paradigmatic preparation (ground beef, BBQ sauce, at least) or people will object. I totally get that.

I would generally agree with this, but when it comes to Sloppy Joes I'm kind of the opposite. I was a fan as a kid and more recently I'd make a batch every few years (or try the rare one out in the wild). I found most were far too sweet. One version I made using tomato sauce, giardiniera, and spices (no sugar at all) is actually pretty good. Last autumn I made gumbo burgers for the first time and was surprised how much I enjoyed them. Somehow the recipe scratches the childhood itch without the overwhelming sweetness I once enjoyed.

David Hammond wrote:Like many homemade classics, the Sloppy Joe is open to infinite variation; a neighbor of ours uses chicken gumbo in hers, which I find hard to imagine but am eager to try.

Last September we had a discussion of gumbo burgers in this thread. Here's one post:

Rene G wrote:

Panther in the Den wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:

D.G.Sullivan wrote:I admit to being a tad over the skeptical line when told the area's best cooks use a can of Chunky Chicken Gumbo soup passed through a blender as their binder.

Just to be clear, is this Chunky Chicken Gumbo used with the Loosie sandwiches? Campbell's Chunky Chicken Gumbo?

I couldn’t believe it so I did some research…

Gumbo burgers – as much a sloppy joe variant as loosemeat sandwich – were discussed earlier in this thread.

germuska wrote:FWIW, this morning on the train I was reading the chapter on loose meat sandwiches in John Edge's Hamburgers and Fries and he cites Iowa church cookbooks which include chicken gumbo in the ingredients.

John T Edge doesn't go so far as to claim an Iowa origin for gumbo burgers, but he mentions the recipe's appearance in two older Iowa church cookbooks. That D.G.Sullivan encountered the sandwich in Iowa – in Iowa churches, I'm guessing – is probably more than mere coincidence. Both cookbooks cited by Edge were published within 200 miles of Marion, where D.G.Sullivan is now. In any case, it seems to be a fairly old recipe. If you read the comments at the end of Campbell's recipe for Chicken Gumbo Sloppy Joes (also known as Gumbo Souperburgers or Spoon Burgers), you'll find folks fondly remembering them from the 1950s. I wonder how many of the commenters grew up in Iowa.

I have now made gumbo burgers a few times and prefer the classic recipe linked to above. Using Campbell's Chunky Chicken Gumbo, with its large discs of fake-smoked sausage, is not an improvement. Blending the soup only distributes that flavor. I think the cheaper and squishier the bun, the better. Garnishes of cheap dill pickle coins and a sprig of curly parsley greatly enhance the experience.



Edited to fix links.

Ah, I love the the touch of parsley on the plate.

Regarding Sloppy Joe bun/bread:

Kid Charlemagne wrote:I lived in France (west 'burbs of Paris) from age 8 to 13, and I would get my mom to make sloppy joes on fresh french baguette from the boulangerie

There is probably no bread I long for more intensely than a French baguette, but I understand what ReneG means when he says:

Rene G wrote: I think the cheaper and squishier the bun, the better.

This particular angle on the Sloppy Joe conversation hit a note with me, and it reminded me of the Chicago hot dog I had in Paris late last year, and about which I posted:

David Hammond wrote:What really set this hot dog apart was the bun; it was no poppy-seed-flecked envelope of white smoosh bread, so maybe points off for that on the authenticity scale, but it was by far the densest, best-tasting hot dog bun in memory. It was almost “too good.” One of my many unsubstantiated beliefs is that some foods (macaroni n’ cheese, gyros, tater tots) must hit the right level of crappiness to satisfy on all the expected levels.

Maybe “right level of crappiness” is the wrong way to put it; what’s important is that such lifelong favorites, such as Sloppy Joes, hit all the right nostalgia buttons. For me, and I suspect many others, when dealing with the classics, it’s preferable to stick as close as possible to the familiar, time-honored ingredients, like a soft, if not downright squishy, bun.

All that said, Kid Charlemagne, I think a Sloppy Joe in a baguette could be wonderful…though I’d probably scoop out some of the soft bread inside to expand the cavity where the Joe meat would go. Just as chips are what I want with Sloppy Joes, having crunchy bread could be a welcome textural addition to the sandwich, though it might make it necessary for me to forego some of the comforting nostalgia.

David Hammond wrote:...One of my many unsubstantiated beliefs is that some foods (macaroni n’ cheese, gyros, tater tots) must hit the right level of crappiness to satisfy on all the expected levels.

That right level of crappiness is so true. Not ashamed to say I liked Kraft Mac and Cheese. A lot. But some time ago they changed the formula for it, taking out the trans fat I think, but didn't tell anyone for a few years. Then they said in an interview about trans fat that they had taken it out years before and no one noticed. Well I sure did. I've been trying to find Mac and Cheese that tastes like Kraft's used to. No luck. Sigh, probably I shouldn't have been eaten it anyway.

But I digress, I now return you to your Sloppy Joes.

Occasionally, my partner in his love affair with the InstantPot he got me for Christmas a couple years back, makes Sloppy Joe's, we call them something else(long story). I always looked forward to my mom's Sloppy Joe's(she's not the greatest cook, apparently I got that gene), but that was a number one dish I loved growing up.

Straight from my wife:
1# ground beef browned in oil, fat drained
1 small onion diced & browned
1 can Campbell’s condensed Chicken Gumbo
Heat & serve on buns with yellow mustard and pickles.
A staple in our early years along with ‘Hong Kong Hash’.
1 # ground beef
1&1/2 cups chopped celery
2 large onions chopped
1/2 cup uncooked rice
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1&1/2 cup water
2 tbl Soy Sauce
Brown the beef and onions, combine all and bake 1&1/2 hrs @ 350F.
Sprinkle with croutons last half hour of baking.

BTW, the above come from wife’s hand written recipe cards.

-Richard

I believe sloppy joes are named after the bar in Key West, which is named after the bar in Cuba. When I was writing about them last spring, that tenuous connection led me to believe that sloppy joes may in fact be a dumbed down version of ropa vieja. I'm far from the first person to make that connection.



In parts of New Jersey, sloppy joes refer to a double-decker two-meat style deli sandwich with Swiss cheese and cole slaw. This sandwich also traces its origin back to Sloppy Joe's in old Havana.



I tried getting fancy with them but I fall back to my grandma's recipe, which my mom still has in grandma's handwriting on a 3x5" card, some 40+ years after grandma's death. Grandma didn't like measuring, I suppose.



"Fry chopped onion, green pepper, small piece celery, clove garlic with hamburger until vegetables are done. Drain excess liquid, add chili powder (1 tbsp) and can tomato puree."



Believe it or not, this does taste quite a bit like ropa vieja.

I've been chasing down a number of origin stories lately, and I came across this other story about the Sloppy Joe's creation, which claims the Sloppy Joe seems also to have been an invention of folks in Iowa: “…a cook named Joe at Floyd Angell’s Café in Sioux City, Iowa, added tomato sauce to his ‘loose meat” sandwiches and the ‘sloppy joe” sandwich was born. Many people find the name ‘sloppy joes’ to be rather funny. Would you believe that sloppy joes are often called by different names in different parts of the United States? It's true! Some other names for sloppy joes include barbecues, dynamites, gulash, sloppy janes, slushburgers, steamers, wimpies, and yum yums.”

https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-are-they-called-sloppy-joes

Folks in Woonsocket don't like it when you call their Dynamites sloppy joes. Ask me how I know

The only alternate name of those I'm familiar with is "barbecues," of which I'd be really curious to learn the etymology. I haven't the faintest clue what "barbecue," even in its most expansive definition has to do with the dish. The best I could come up with is maybe the sauce is supposed to be a barbecue sauce? I guess maybe I could see that.

Binko wrote:The only alternate name of those I'm familiar with is "barbecues," of which I'd be really curious to learn the etymology. I haven't the faintest clue what "barbecue," even in its most expansive definition has to do with the dish. The best I could come up with is maybe the sauce is supposed to be a barbecue sauce? I guess maybe I could see that.

I agree that it's probably the sauce that inspired the name "barbecue," but oddly, in none of the recipes Carolyn checked was BBQ sauce recommended (though I'm guessing that a lot of people use that, and I would have, but Carolyn wanted to make her own, which I'm sure was much better than any bottled stuff).

Silver Cloud on Damen used to make a pretty respectable Sloppy Joe back in the day, which, paired with their tater tots, made for an unholy lunch. As David suggests, it's not very common to find a Sloppy Joe on a restaurant menu (especially in the city) so the one at Silver Cloud always scratched an itch.

David Hammond wrote:Regarding Sloppy Joe bun/bread:

Kid Charlemagne wrote:I lived in France (west 'burbs of Paris) from age 8 to 13, and I would get my mom to make sloppy joes on fresh french baguette from the boulangerie

There is probably no bread I long for more intensely than a French baguette, but I understand what ReneG means when he says:

Rene G wrote: I think the cheaper and squishier the bun, the better.

I think I agree with you - it wasn't a matter of me wanting it to be on french baguette per se, just that at the time (late 70's) hamburger buns weren't readily available, or at least weren't very good in France.

Other things I lacked: root beer, sugary cereal, and American superhero comics.

When I was in Chicagoland, I think that I had more Sloppy Joe's at various functions at the local Salvation Army church. It seemed to be their most popular dish for volunteer functions.

I make Sloppy Joe twice a year. I do not generally use a recipe unless one of my friends requests that I use one of their recipes. I generally omit or cut back on the sugar. I nearly always add Worcestershire sauce. I serve the sandwiches on hamburger buns (which I rarely have) or a dark rye bread.

Luckyguy wrote:Silver Cloud on Damen used to make a pretty respectable Sloppy Joe back in the day, which, paired with their tater tots, made for an unholy lunch. As David suggests, it's not very common to find a Sloppy Joe on a restaurant menu (especially in the city) so the one at Silver Cloud always scratched an itch.

Four Moon Tavern on Roscoe has a sloppy joe on their menu and it is pretty good.

Carolyn reminded me of a variation called Sloppy Mac that I posted about, good lord, about fourteen years ago:

"Taylor, my daughter’s boyfriend, recently out-of-college, told me that he used to room with two buttheads who were always eating his food. So on select weekend nights, Taylor and a good buddy would make a big steaming pot of Sloppy Mac, basically Sloppy Joe mixed in with Mac n' Cheese, maybe about five, six pounds worth, and then eat it all in one sitting so those buttheads wouldn’t get any when they staggered in. When the pot was cleaned, Taylor and good buddy would sit around all night playing video games and feeling sick."

https://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=9558