When you’re feeling a bit lazy but you still have to prepare a hearty meal for the family, there are few things better in those circumstances than sloppy joes. For anyone unfamiliar, sloppy joes date back to a trend of “loose meat sandwiches” where were being sold in Sioux City, Iowa as far back as the 1930s and 1940s. Regardless, these piping hot and decidedly messy meals spread across the country. Though everyone has their own version of the recipe, the base typically consists simply of burger meat, onions, tomato sauce, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, all on a hamburger bun.
Still, although these sandwiches can hit the spot sometimes, they’re not particularly exciting to eat once we’ve had them too many times. Fortunately, we’ve got a simple twist on the sloppy joe recipe that will make you fall in love with them all over again. That’s right—today’s recipe for Philly cheesesteak sloppy joes is going to be your new favorite easy meal.
Here’s what you need:
- 1 pound of lean ground beef
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 small green bell pepper, diced
- 8 ounces of brown mushrooms, minced
- 2 tablespoons of ketchup
- 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
- 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
- 1 cup of beef broth
- 8 ounces of chopped provolone cheese slices
- 6 brioche hamburger buns
Here’s what you do:
1. First, get a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, throw in your ground beef and let it brown without breaking it up. Once it starts to form a deep brown crust, you can break the beef up with a wooden spoon or a spatula.
2. Keep stirring the beef and letting it all brown thoroughly until about half of the meat is very well browned. At that point, remove the beef from the pan and set it aside while leaving the leftover fat in the pan. Add your chopped mushrooms and bell peppers and let them cook for one to two minutes before stirring.
3. After a couple minutes, stir them up and then let them brown for another one to two minutes. Once they’ve cooked down somewhat, add your beef back into the pan. In the meantime, mix together your beef broth and cornstarch in a small cup. Whenever you’re ready, add your cornstarch mixture along with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt and black pepper. Make sure you stir everything together very well to combine it.
4. With all the ingredients in the pan, keep letting it all cook until most of the liquid reduces and everything starts to thicken. Ideally, you should have about 75% of your mixture above the remaining liquid in the pan. At that point, turn off the heat, add your cheese and stir it up until it all melts.
5. Once the cheese melts and mixes with the sauce into gooey goodness, your Philly cheesesteak mix is ready to serve! Simply spoon it onto your brioche buns (toasted, if you want to be extra fancy) and enjoy.
As you can see, this recipe still preserves the easy preparation of the sloppy joe along with some its signature flavors—it just adds a few ingredients to give everything a fun spin. Although these little burgers are full of delicious savory flavor all on their own, you can spice things up a little bit by serving them with some Carolina-style BBQ sauce or even some spicy mustard. Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
Finally, although brioche buns are a nice touch to take this to the next level, regular hamburger buns or Hawaiian sweet buns are also acceptable substitutes. You can even substitute turkey for lean beef if you want an even leaner version of this recipe. Above all, have fun with it and enjoy!
Have you tried this recipe yourself? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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