This is a simple dinner idea! Sloppy Joes Recipe has only 3 ingredients and there are no excuses to not try this family friendly dinner idea that everyone will love!
3 Ingredient Sloppy Joes recipe:
This 3 ingredient Sloppy Joe recipe taste so much better than the can sloppy joe mix! The best part it is so easy to make and delicious too! You probably already have most of the ingredients to make this easy recipe. Plus you know what you are feeding your family as you are skipping the can stuff!
My family loves this meal! We will often plan on eating this for lunch on the weekend. It is so easy to put together and we have a homecooked meal for lunch in between our basketball games!
Ingredients:
Besides ground beef, you only need three ingredients to make this delicious Sloppy Joes recipe.
- Mustard
- Ketchup or tomato sauce
- Brown Sugar
Yep! That is all you need to make a fast sloppy joes for your family. What makes it even better is one of my kids does not like the traditional sloppy joes, but loves this recipe!
Once you make this, you won’t ever buy that store bought stuff again. This has so much more flavor than the canned sloppy joes.
How to make Homemade Sloppy Joes:
- Brown the ground beef in a large skillet on medium high heat until no longer pink. You can use ground turkey too!
- Once browned, drain.
- Add in brown sugar, mustard, and ketchup. Stir to combine.
Allow the meat mixture to simmer on low for about 5 minutes to combine the flavors.
Serve on buns and with your favorite sides.
Easy Sloppy Joes:
Anyone can make this easy meal. With just a few simple ingredients and only a few minutes needed, this dinner comes together very fast.
What can I make with sloppy joes?
It’s really good served with Grilled Corn on the Cob.and Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries. These are both so easy and really delicious side dishes. Just keep it simple. This meal can easily be ready with hardly any work at all.
Try adding green bell pepper or onion to the ground beef while cooking. Onion and green pepper really give it an amazing flavor. Another time saving tip is to use a small food chopper or food processor to quickly and easily chop the onions and bell pepper. If you do not have one of these, I highly recommend them. They are such a time saver and you can get the veggies really fine. The picky eaters won’t even know they are mixed in.
Sloppy Joes Freeze great too!
Make a double or triple batch and freeze the left overs. It does not take anymore work to make extra. We love to cook once and eat twice or more. This is such a huge help during busy weeks.
It really isn’t any extra work to double the recipe and you have a super easy dinner for another night. I try to do this as much as possible and keep a few quick meals in the freezer.
How to freeze sloppy joes:
You can freeze them in a freezer bag. Then reheat in a crockpot or in a pan for an even faster dinner idea! Try sloppy joe recipe slow cooker version and come home to dinner ready to enjoy! This is great for reheating what you put in the freezer and makes dinner so simple.
We also like to freeze them in silicone cupcake pans, Then pop them out and place in a freezer bag. Now you can have a lunch or dinner for 1 in no time! This is such an easy dinner idea, but when you freeze them it makes it an even faster dinner idea.
Frugal Tip for ground beef sloppy joes:
Did you know that you can mix ground turkey in with your ground beef? With my big family of 8, this is is a nice money saver. Ground turkey is about half the cost of ground beef, but when you mix it with ground beef the turkey actually takes on the flavor.
Since this meal is so easy to change or adapt to what you have on hand, it will save you time and money. In fact, I cut our grocery bill by 50% off by following these 8 Tips for for Saving Money on Groceries by Menu Planning!
Save that money for a family vacation or maybe just some wiggle room in the budget. Easy recipes like this keep my family happy and my grocery budget in good shape. Plus, being able to throw this together quickly and easily really helps to avoid the temptation of getting take out. Everyone is much happier with a delicious home cooked meal anyway.
Best Sloppy Joes Recipe:
In under 30 minutes, you can have this quick easy dinner idea that your family will love. You can probably cook this in 20 minutes! Homemade sloppy joes are so delicious and our family loves this recipe. They are really easy to modify for what you have on hand and so versatile.
We have even added a tiny bit of worcestershire sauce and garlic powder to the ground beef mixture. You can try using chili powder, red pepper flakes, bbq sauce, olive oil or whatever you prefer. It really is such a great recipe and we all love sloppy joe meat! It never gets old and we enjoy this recipe so much. Try toasted buns next time! It is really good!
If you enjoy this quick and easy sloppy joes skillet recipe, you should also try our street tacos recipe. It’s easy to prepare and packed with tons of flavor. My entire family loves both of these recipes.
Print this super easy sloppy joe recipe below:
This Sloppy Joes is so easy to make and taste way better than sloppy joes in a can. How to make sloppy joes with ketchup and just two more ingredients.
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/8 cup brown sugar
- 1/8 cup mustard
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- hamburger buns
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Brown the ground beef in a skillet.
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Once browned, drain.
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Add in brown sugar, mustard, and ketchup. Stir to combine.
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Allow it to simmer on low for about 5 minutes to combine the flavors.
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Serve on buns and with your favorite sides.
3 ingredients, that is all you need to make a fast sloppy joes for your family. You are going to love this recipe!
Hey… are you following me on pinterest? Make sure you follow me so you don’t miss another money saving recipe.
Try these other sloppy joes:
- Quick and Easy BBQ Sloppy Joes Recipe
- Sloppy Joes Recipe – Only 3 Ingredients
- Ultimate Sloppy Joes
- Best Sloppy Joes
- Homemade Sloppy Joes
- Easy Crock Pot Sloppy Joes Recipe
- Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes Recipe
- Easy Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes
- Sloppy joes stuffed french bread recipe
- easy Buffalo Chicken Sloppy Joes recipe
Cathleen Christ says
This is how I’ve been making my sloppy joes for years. Everyone loves it every time I make it. =)
Marcy says
My husband and I both agree this is the best sloppy joe recipe we have ever made! Yum!
Erica says
These were delicious, just like my mom used to make! My fiancé loved them! The only thing I added was a drizzle of honey bbq sauce.
Debbie says
made this tonight for dinner, was so easy. added chopped onion and green peppers to the ground beef. Much better then any can mix.
Janice says
Have made sloppy joes this way for over 50 years. This is the way my mom made it. Like any recipe, this can be altered and ingredients added. Try sauteing onions with ground beef. Green peppers are also good. But just making the basic recipe is what I use most of the time!
Wouldn’t let me rate this over three stars……..why is this
Larry says
It’s a great place to start. We decided at the last minute to leave out the sugar add chopped green onions that we needed to use. Worked out beautifully. Next time we’ll use a tiny bit of garlic instead of the onions.
Carolyn says
These were excellent!
Carrie says
I’m so glad you liked them. We love this easy recipe.
Carrie says
Thanks Janice – We have done sauted onions too and love it!
Stephanie says
This is a great recipe. I have been using this for years. My mother taught me this one while I was still in school. The only difference is a teaspoon of pickle relish for ours.
Carrie says
Oh that is a great idea! 🙂
jess says
Sved my butt today with this recipe and it was awesome 🙂
Carrie says
That is awesome Jess!
Sue says
Just wanted to make sure, yellow mustard right?
Carrie says
Yes yellow mustard Sue, but you could probably try any kind for a slightly different flavor. 🙂
Cindy says
What a great recipe. I had left over meat from taco night and this was a great, easy, fun recipe. Everything I already had in my Kitchen. Thumbs up.
Kathy says
made this for years but used tomato soup instead of ketchup
Mar says
Can you give me an idea of how many this recipe will serve?
Sherl says
I made this recipe tonight for dinner it was really easy my husband loves sloppy joe! But I’m not a big fan of a can or homemade. This recipe didn’t seem to make up a lot my husband liked it I did not but great recipes for quick dinner!
Tina says
Can you use ground turkey instead of ground beef
Cindy From Iowa says
This is my favorite recipe for Sloppy Joe’s!
Jessica says
does anyone know how many serving this recipe is, I’m tempting to make this tonight 🙂
Sharon says
We loved these! ? When my husband chooses not to eat potato chips with a “burger” because it would take away from the taste of the Sloppy Joe, I know I have found a WI NNER!!!! He also told me I had found a KEEPER with this recipe. The only changes I made was I I halved the recipe and sauted 1/4 c. diced, yellow onion and 1/4 c. diced green pepper before adding the ground beef to the skillet. I also sprinkled between 1/4 and 1/2 tsp. celery salt into the ground meat as it was browning. I just halved the amount of mustard and catsup. ????
Tigra says
My son is a picky eater so we started going through pinterest pictures bases on what i had shopped for or was in my freezer. I had ground beef so I left him look through the pictures for something he thought he would like to try/looked good. He picked this recipe. I made it tonight and he really liked it. He loves ketchup and smelled it right away. I’ll make this again and slowly add in more veggies like onions and bellpeppers and maybe even sneak in some shredded carrot while adding less and less sugar. I loved sloppy joes as a kid but as an adult the can stuff scares me. Thanks for the mom win and feelings of nostalgia.
Crystal says
Oh my gosh I am SOO incredibly glad I found this recipe tonight!! I was surfing Pinterest trying to figure out a simple, quick recipe to use for ground beef, after a long day at work, stumbled across this one, and decided to give it a try. And IT IS SOOO INSANELY GOOD!!! I made it exactly as it is in the recipe (other than adding a slice of cheese) and it was so easy, and so perfect, I know I will make this time and time again!!
Lauren says
Recipe was a real lifesaver thank you Carrie!
Wendy D says
I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for about two months, but my husband doesn’t like sloppy joes. I finally decided to make it for myself and he decided to try it. My two adjustments were that I added 1/4 cup diced onions to the browning meat (as I had them in the freezer from another recipe) and finely shredded cheese on top (also already had from another recipe). I opted for sweet Hawaiian slider rolls (not tiny, but about 2/3 the size of a regular bun at the grocery store). The combination was perfect, just a little extra sweetness and very soft to go with it. My husband LOVED it! Said it’s not like other sloppy joes he doesn’t like and, since I have buns, I’m making it again for lunch tomorrow. He’s happy about that, since he polished most of it off. Fabulous recipe and one of the easiest I’ve seen with ingredients most of us already have. My only side was dill pickle spears already in the fridge. Thanks, Carrie!
Teresa says
I add onion, garlic and a splash of vinegar and worchershire sauce to the ingredients you listed. My mom never bought the canned sloppy joes and neither do I.
Carrie says
Great ideas – Thank you!
dotty murphy says
We use ground chuck and Sweet Baby Rays bbq sauce and is great.
Carrie says
That sounds delicious!
Michelle says
So easy and delicious!! It’s like my grandma used to make! Thank you!!
Carrie says
You’re welcome!
Brenda Alvarez says
I was looking for a quick and easy sloppy joe recipe and was so happy to find this one. I made them for a family get together and they were a huge hit! My nephew ate three of them! This is now my go-to recipe. I have made them with finely diced peppers and onions, and without. Still delicious! Thank you for sharing!
Brandy says
another family favorite.
Neil says
Our family’s go to football watching food with the toasted buns. On the menu for TH Game on Super Sunday.
Kathryn Canty says
Truthfully, I’m not really a “sloppy joe” person. However, I had some ground beef and some hamburger buns I needed to use, so I made this recipe. It was SO GOOD.
Tonya Connor says
I made this tonight and it was a show stopper. I used ground turkey and instead of mustard I used honey mustard and didn’t have to add brown sugar. I also added onions to it. This will be added to my rotation of good quick and easy meals. Thanks so much for posting this recipe it made my dinner seem so effortless and delicious.
Carrie says
I’m so glad you enjoyed it – Thank you for taking the time to leave a review!
Michelle says
Absolutely great little recipe for some left over ground beef. Made it as stated with a brioche bun. Yummy! Thanks for a winner.
Carrie says
I’m so glad you enjoyed it – Thank you!