Sloppy Joe Recipes

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips on the making the perfect Sloppy Joe. I usually use the canned stuff (one of the few processed foods I use), but am out tonight. I can't seem to get to Recipesource.com, which is where I usually turn for inspiration. Any suggestions? I can make a stab at it but figured I'd see if anyone here has a killer recipe.

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure I posted his here before, but it's been a while if I did.

Midwestern Sloppy Joes, circa 1965

This is what your babysitter reheated for you once upon a time. Now, make it yourself! Please don’t recoil in horror when you encounter the can of condensed Chicken Gumbo soup among the ingredients listed here. Thousands of . . . regional . . . cookbooks have been published with condensed soup as a leading ingredient. I’ve tried making Sloppy Joes other ways, and nothing comes close to the body and straight-ahead flavor of this concoction. The condensed soup provides precisely the right sloppiness to the matters at hand. This is an authentic recipe from Ohio, where Sloppy Joes flourished for decades. The recipe evolved from one that is now literally 100 years old, emanating from the kitchen of one Leila Harsch, who, among other things, graduated from Wellesley College in 1898. (Obviously, Leila didn’t have access to condensed Chicken Gumbo soup.) It is a most forgiving recipe—a ten-year-old could make these. And did. In fact, this is a pretty good “teaching’’ recipe.

2/3 cup chopped yellow onion
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound ground chuck
1 can condensed Chicken Gumbo soup (Campbell’s is fine)
1/4 cup water (used to rinse out the soup can)
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Over medium heat, cook the onion in the butter until just tan around the edges. Stir in salt and pepper. Add beef and brown, stirring and breaking up the chunks with a suitable wooden implement. Add remaining ingredients and simmer slowly, partially covered, for an hour or more. The longer it cooks, the more tender the beef will get, as in a Bolognese sauce.

Serve spooned into very soft hamburger buns. This makes enough for three or four hungry people

We make it this way--easy, and less sodium than using typical catsup/chili sauce:

1 lb. ground beef
1 can Healthy Request tomato soup
1 medium chopped onion
1/2 green pepper, finely chopped
1 T wine or cider vinegar
2tsp Worcestershire sauce
garlic powder (optional) to taste

Brown the beef, add chopped onion, pepper. Saute till onion is transculscent and pepper is soft. Add in soup, 1 can water, vinegar and Wor. sauce; season with salt and pepper, garlic powder if desired. Simmer on medium 20 minutes or so until desired thickness (we like it a little runny.) Slop it on a bun--and remember elementary school!

Chino Wayne's Infamous Sloppy Joes

4 pounds very lean ground beef
24 oz. tomato paste
4 packets Lawry's or Schilling-McCormick Sloppy Joe mix (who said life has to be difficult)
2 cups about (read the package instructions, then use less because the following ingredients will add moisture)
2 large green peppers, diced
1 or 2 cans of pitted black olives, semi-crushed or halved

Prepare first four ingredients according to package instructions, add last two ingredients, Add regular Tabasco, Habanero Tabasco, cayenne, etc. to taste simmer covered on a very low flame for at least an hour.

Serve over toasted hamburger buns, with flour tortillas with cheese as burritos, or straight from a bowl.

The fourth ingredient above should have read: "2 cups (about) water..."

-Brain Dead On The Liquid Diet

I found a great recipe that I used tonight. A bit on the sweet side, so next time I'll reduce the brown sugar.

Link: http://beef.allrecipes.com/AZ/EmilysF...