Not sure who Joe is, but this is my rendition of the popular classic. This recipe has been in the working since 2005, but never got written down. The first homemade Sloppy Joe I had was while I was studying abroad in Australia where a pearl laden Michigan native housemate taught me the way. I will never forget her cooking this in our small dorm room in her finest pearls....making Sloppy Joes.
Ingredients [makes 6-8 sloppy nicks]
3 lbs Ground Turkey
1/2 yellow onion, diced
2-3 Bell Peppers [mixed color], diced
1 1/2 cups Ketchup
1/2 cup bbq sauce
TBLS Worcestershire Sauce
2 tsp yellow mustard
1 1/2 cups red wine (don't get too fancy, it cooks down)
2 TBLS Olive Oil
Directions
Add olive oil to large pot at medium high heat. Toss in diced onion and peppers; sauce 5-10 minutes, until they start to cook down and carmelize a bit. I am not a fan of raw onion in anything, so I really cook it down to almost hide it in the dish. Remove from pot and set aside in a bowl.
To pot, add ground turkey and season with salt & pepper. Do your best to break the meat up and brown it. Use the back of a wooden spoon, or even a potato masher to get into finer consistency. Once turkey is cooked through and no longer pink, add onion/pepper mix back in.
Then add the ketchup, bbq sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and red wine. Mix well and bring to somewhat of a boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. You really want to cook it down till you get the right "sloppy" consistency. We have all eaten these before, so you should know what to look for, its not too runny, but messy enough.
Towards the end I needed to put mine on high heat to cook off the liquid and get it to the right consistency. If it gets too thick, add a little water and if its too thin, you can always add some cornstarch to bind it a bit. Taste it for the right tanginess. You can always tweak to your liking. I have noticed sometimes that I need to add a little more yellow mustard to get the right amount of tanginess. You will know what I mean when you taste it.
Transfer meat to buns. In this case, I also topped them with shredded pepper jack cheese and served them on brioche rolls. A hamburger bun works perfectly fine.
Enjoy.
