This post may contain affiliate links. Read disclosure policy
A childhood classic with an update! My homemade sloppy joe sauce recipe is perfect on ground beef and stuffed in peppers!
When I was, oh, 20 years old, I worked in a doctor’s office. One of the girls that I worked with was always talking about what she was going to have for dinner that night. Should she make this or should she make that? Could she get away with pizza rolls or had she better cook something a little healthier?
Well, it seemed to me that most nights she decided on Sloppy Joes. She said she’d just run by the store and grab the buns and a can of sauce on her way home and that would be easy enough.
Now, me? I had never had a sloppy joe in my entire life. Please tell me how this is even possible for a child in American in the 90s to not have eaten a sloppy joe? My mom is weird and didn’t know good and easy food when she saw it.
Anyway, the truth is that I didn’t even know what sloppy joes really consisted of and so I finally got up the nerve to ask my friend this ridiculous question: So, is the meat in the can with the sauce too?
I think she laughed at me for days. Maybe even weeks. The meat was definitely not in the can.
Then, some time along the way, my mother-in-law made her famous sloppy joes. I asked her the recipe and it’s your standard sloppy joe from a can story, except that she adds in a secret ingredient. Canned corned beef.
Let me be totally real for a moment here – I am a snob when it comes to canned meat. I turn my nose up at it and I roll my eyes and I most definitely do not consume it. Except for when it comes to my mother-in-law’s amazing sloppy joes. I would eat them all day, every day without a care in the world. That is some good stuff, you guys.
So, I took a version of her recipe, with my own homemade sloppy joe sauce recipe, and I stuffed it all up in some peppers. It’s like sloppy joes for grown ups or something. Except my kids totally eat them too. Use any color pepper that you like. We prefer the red and orange peppers because they’re sweeter than green. I also used corned beef hash, instead of plain old corned beef. You can use either, but I like that the hash has little chunks of potatoes in there.
Hope you guys enjoy!
Sloppy Joe Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
- 4 bell peppers any color
- 1 cup ketchup
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 2 teaspoons prepared mustard
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 pound ground beef
- 8 ounces canned corned beef hash
- 4 ounces cheddar cheese grated
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Wash the bell peppers and slice the tops off. Remove the stem and seeds from the inside.
- In a small bowl, combine the ketchup, water, vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic powder, and onion powder. Stir until smooth. Set aside.
- Add the ground beef to a large skillet and brown over medium heat. Drain the fat and return to the skillet. Add the corned beef hash to the pan and cook until heated through.
- Add the sloppy joe sauce to the pan with the beef and stir to coat.
- Spoon the meat mixture into each of the 4 bell peppers and place in an 8x8 baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove the foil and top each pepper with the cheese. Continue baking for another 10 minutes, uncovered, or until the peppers have softened to your liking.
- Serve immediately.
Amy says
Y’all are so YOUNG! Sloppy Joes were staples in the 1970s but seemed to fall out of favor in the 90s. I for one am glad they’re back.
@jEffforcum says
Since you have an aversion to canned meat, you just use the Sloppy Joe dry mix with your own meat. That’s how I plan to make this dish. It looks great.
Shawn @ I Wash You Dry says
I’m in disbelief that you didn’t have a sloppy joe until your twenties! Glad that you’ve joined the club. 😉
Michele at Gardenia Living says
Oh my goodness! I have some peppers in my fridge that I’ve been trying to figure out what I was going to do with them. This is perfect. I just need to grab a couple of things and then I’m ready to make this. Thanks for the inspiration Karly! 🙂
Karly says
Enjoy!
DoHolter says
Can these be made and frozen before baking? granmad@roadrunner.com
Karly says
I haven’t tried it myself but I think it would work just fine.
Pat Wheeler says
I freeze stuffed peppers all the time. My mom taught me something about bell peppers that has served me well. There is something about the cellular structure of bell peppers that makes the PERFECT for containers to freeze leftovers. I used to buy green bell peppers 30 at a time (back when you could get them on sale at 5 for a dollar – those were the days…) I would cut the top off and remove the seeds and membrane. Then I would wrap them in plastic wrap (folding the ends into the pepper) and freeze them on the door shelves inside my freezer. Whenever I had leftovers that I wasn’t going to eat in the next couple of days I would take out enough peppers to hold them (when frozen they were like cold green porcelain bowls) and stuff the leftovers in them, re-wrapping them in the same plastic wrap and put them back into the freezer. To reheat them I would put them in the microwave for 7 minutes (it would be less today because they don’t make 10 watt microwaves anymore (lol)). Everything came out tasting just like you had prepared it five minutes ago. Spaghetti, mashed potatoes, any kind of casserole or pasta came out like it was fresh out of the pot, skillet, etc. I didn’t even have to refrigerate it if I took it to work for lunch because an Ice cube that size just doesn’t melt in three or four hours.
So, freeze away. But personally, I would go ahead and bake them first, let them cool, and then wrap them and freeze them for later.
By the way Karly, I love your site and especially your wonderful recipes.
Anna @ Crunchy Creamy Sweet says
I had my first sloppy joes after we got married! Cray cray! My Hubby loves stuffed peppers so I pretty much have to make these. Pinned!
Joshua Hampton says
I love the idea of stuffing peppers with sloppy joe sauce. Yummy. Also, corned beef in sloppy joes sounds wonderful.
Krystle says
LOL @ is the meat in the can!! Sorry not sorry! 🙂
Love this idea, would be perfect for all the peppers from our neighbors garden.
marcie says
I love stuffed peppers — this is an awesome idea! 🙂
Amy @Very Culinary says
Wow, Karly. Just….all of this. And hey, if it makes you feel any better, I was in my 30’s before I had meatloaf for the first time. Better late, than never!
Karly says
Oh my gosh…I wasn’t in my thirties, but I was married before I ever had meatloaf! What is our life?!
Carlee says
Corned beef mixed in the sloppy joes?! Mind blown! And how did you go that long never having a sloppy joe? Crazy!