These slow cooker sloppy joes are made with ground beef, tomato sauce, brown sugar and spices, all cooked to savory perfection. An easy crock pot meal that’s kid friendly and perfect for serving a crowd.
Once you’ve tried homemade sloppy joes, you’ll never go back to the kind that comes in a can. This slow cooker sloppy joe recipe takes just 10 minutes to assemble. Let your meat simmer all day long, then serve on buns for a meal that the kids will love.
I don’t think there’s a better feeling than sitting down with classic comfort food like these slow cooker sloppy joes. Not only are they simple to make, but you can easily double the recipe and have leftovers. It’s one of my favorite meals and I know my family will agree. Be sure to check out my ground beef stroganoff recipe for another traditional kid friendly option!
HOW DO YOU MAKE SLOW COOKER SLOPPY JOES?
These crock pot sloppy joes are extremely easy and quick to throw together. They’re made with ground beef, tomato sauce, brown sugar, and spices, cooked to a savory perfection in the crock pot. The simmering really draws out the flavor and makes the meat super tender. I guarantee these will be a family favorite!
I suggest using a leaner beef such as 90% lean ground beef, in your crock pot sloppy joes. It’s still got a lot of flavor, but without all the grease. Ground turkey can be used instead of beef but make sure you use 93% lean ground turkey and not the 99% lean turkey breast.
If you want to mix up this dish and make it your own, you can add other ingredients such as bell peppers, herbs, bacon or sriracha. It’s also popular to add a slice of cheese to your sloppy joe sandwich – we typically use cheddar cheese. Make sure to use a sturdy hamburger bun and toast it before serving so that your bread won’t get soggy under all that saucy meat.
WHERE DID THE SLOPPY JOE COME FROM?
It’s not quite certain exactly who created the sloppy joe, but the creation is largely attributed to a cook name Joe. He added some tomato sauce to some loose meat he had and thus the sloppy joe was born. However, there’s also two other versions of the story. One story says sloppy joes were created in Havana at a saloon, and the other says it was in Florida at a famous bar.
WHAT IS THE ORIGINAL SLOPPY JOE RECIPE?
The original sloppy joe recipe hasn’t changed much over the years. It’s such a basic and easy mixture that there wasn’t much to switch around. However, the original mixture includes ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, sugar, salt, and pepper.
With school starting back up, I’ve really been making sure I have some recipes planned that the whole family will happily eat. However, they have to be easy and something I can toss together in just minutes. I love crock pot sloppy joes because I can literally dump it and go–the perfect dinner for a busy night. Looking for a different flavor combination of this class recipe? Be sure to check out my nacho sloppy joes!
MORE SLOW COOKER RECIPES YOU’LL LOVE
- Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef
- Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
- Slow Cooker Salisbury Steak
- Slow Cooker Turkey Chili
- Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos
Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes Video
Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 pounds ground beef I use 90% lean
- 1/2 cup onion finely diced
- 2 8 ounce cans tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 6 hamburger buns
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pan over medium high heat.
- Place the ground beef in the pan and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 6-8 minutes, breaking up the meat with a spatula.
- Add the onion and cook for an addition 4-5 minutes.
- Place the beef and onion mixture in the slow cooker along with the tomato sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
- Stir to combine the ingredients.
- Cook on HIGH for 3 hours or LOW for 6 hours.
- Spoon the meat onto the hamburger buns then serve.
Hi there! Should the meat be completely browned? Thank you!!
You really just want to make sure it’s broken up into small pieces and partially cooked, it doesn’t need to be 100% browned and cooked through.
What size crock pot should I use?
4 quart should be fine!
why do you brown the beef before putting it in the crockpot? I usually put the meat in raw, so wondering if that will work and I just need to add time to the cooking or if it will throw off the intended taste / texture.
You brown the meat first because if you place a big block of meat in the crockpot it won’t separate into crumbles, you need to manually crumble it hence the browning. Plus browning makes it taste better!
Never liked Sloppy Joes. But I made them using the can sauce for my Husband. But this recipe is so easy and a no brainer. Great flavor I love this recipe.
is the nutritional label set for one sloppy joe? is there a measurement for each serving size?
It’s for 1 sloppy joe, which should be about 1 cup of meat.
To lower calories, I used sugar free ketchup and Splenda brown sugar 🙂
I mixed all the ingredients except the ground beef already and was planning to add the ground beef to the ingredients once I brown the beef. Do you think the onions and peppers will cook ok in the crockpot? I forgot that they were to be added to the beef when it was browning.
I think it could be ok you might want to cook it longer to make sure the onions are done.