This Homemade Sloppy Joe Recipe makes a quick and easy dinner that you can make for the entire family for just $5 including the side dishes!
Homemade Sloppy Joe Recipe
Homemade Sloppy Joe sandwiches make a quick and easy dinner that you can make for the entire family for just $5 including the sides! You’ll find our super easy recipe below!
These sandwiches are known by a variety of names including Manwich. If you see a recipe for a homemade Manwich recipe, it would be essentially the same recipe as a sloppy joe recipe.
Sloppy Joe is a popular classic American sandwich dating back to the early 20th century. Sloppy Joes usually include ground beef, onions, tomato sauce or ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and other seasonings, but the ingredients can vary.
Sloppy Joe sandwiches are most often served on a hamburger bun, but you can serve them on regular bread, French bread or fancy dinner rolls if you like. If you serve them on sandwich bread, you might want to toast the bread first if you use a lot of the sauce so it doesn’t get soggy.
This easy homemade Sloppy Joe recipe is perfect for families with kids as everyone loves them, even picky eaters! I have served it frequently to my family over the years because it’s so quick and easy to make when I’m not feeling great and it’s an easy meal I can make for the whole family for just $5.
You can make your own Sloppy Joes and it only takes about 10 minutes to make with ingredients you already have in your refrigerator. No need to buy a box mix or a can of sauce. This homemade recipe is just as easy and a lot cheaper than buying a pre-made mix at the store.
I save time by cooking 5 pounds of ground beef at once and then dividing it into freezer bags. I don’t even have to brown the ground beef because I cooked it before I froze it. Then I just thaw the amount I need and throw it into the pan to warm and serve.
My easy Sloppy Joe recipe is made with ketchup, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce and these give it a very delicious taste. I don’t like my Sloppy Joe sandwiches too saucy (I think the recipe below is perfect), but if you prefer more sauce, you can increase the sauce ingredients as much as you like as long as you keep the proportion of the sauce ingredients the same.
This Sloppy Joe recipe goes great with a salad or sliced fruit and dinner is fast, easy and cheap! I of the serve them with something simple, like grapes, sliced cucumbers, baby carrots, French fries or tater tots. You can also make a pan of brownies or lemon bars to go with it.
Homemade Sloppy Joe sandwiches are a great dinner to make during the summer and if you are going to a sports event you can make it ahead in the morning and then just warm it up when you get home. You can put this in the crockpot on low for 1-2 hours but it’s so fast and easy that I usually just use the stovetop.
This easy Sloppy Joe recipe is in volume 1 of our cookbook:
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Homemade Sloppy Joe Recipe
This Homemade Sloppy Joe Recipe makes a quick and easy dinner that you can make for the entire family for just $5 including the side dishes!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings
- Category: main dishes
- Method: stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped or 1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
5 Tbsp. ketchup
2 tsp brown sugar
1/8 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
hamburger buns (If gluten free, use GF buns.)
Instructions
- Brown meat and onion until the onion is tender.
- Drain the fat.
- Add the remaining ingredients.
- Heat thoroughly, stirring to mix all of the ingredients.
- Serve on hamburger buns. Serves 6.
Notes
- This recipe can easily be doubled or tripled and you can make several batches and freeze ahead of time. Then just thaw and serve.
- If you use a 5 pound chub of ground beef, that cuts the price down even more.
- To save a lot on ground beef: If you get 73% ground beef, you can cook out and drain off the excess fat and the price is still a lot cheaper than buying 93% lean ground beef.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 sandwich
- Calories: 361
Other recipes that go well with this homemade Sloppy Joe recipe:
The BEST Cole Slaw Recipe Ever!
Garlic Salad Recipe – A garlic-themed variation on coleslaw!
The BEST Homemade Potato Salad Recipe
I’m making these for supper tonight. It is so much cheaper to make it from scratch.
i made this foor our dinner. i did not have any lemon juice. what can u add instead of that
You can just leave it out if you need to
I add a tsp. of mustard instead of lemon juice
I’ve enjoyed a bit of vinegar in our joes.
This was so good!! Will never buy packaged again! Going to pass to my kids. Thanks
I love this sloppy Joe recipe! I add a shredded carrot to the sauce to stretch it further (big family, small budget), and nobody knows they’re getting extra vegetables. Sometimes I use pinto or navy beans in place of the meat to make it even cheaper.
I am going to make these in the next week. I have all these ingredients on hand and had them on the menu and saw on the show tonight that you have a recipe for Sloppy Joes.
Hope you enjoy them. They seem to be one of our more popular recipes.
Can it be made without the Worcestershire sauce? Should I substitute another ingredient in it’s place?
Yes April you can make it without the Worcestershire sauce and you don’t need to add anything else. Many people use Worcestershire in their hamburger patties before barbecuing but I don’t use it in mine.
Thank you Jill! I do not like Worcestershire sauce :)
Am planning to make for “my” firemen crews.
Thank you again for this recipe. Just wanted you to know your video for this recipe on YouTube was split and did not come through.
Thanks for letting us know Jean.
I made dining on a dimes sloppy Joe’s for dinner last night. This recipe was quick, easy and delicious. Served them with onion rings and watermelon.
Thank you so much for letting us know you enjoyed them and yum – a perfect combination with the onion rings and watermelon.
my family never liked sloppy joes until I found your recipe, and this one they love! it’s the best and frugal is a plus. thank you so much !
Oh thank you Sandra- am so glad you are enjoying them
I just read this. How do I figure out the amount of ingredients for 5 lb of ground meat
You would just multiply all the other ingredients by 5 – if you only want to use 1 lb then just divide the 5 lb into 5 chunks (it doesn’t have to be exact because it is just sloppy joes)
That’s exactly how I have always made mine.
Love those sloppy joes.