Crock Pot Paleo Sloppy Joes Recipe {Clean Eating}

December 10, 2017 Rebecca Baron 26 Comments

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This is a really good crock pot Paleo sloppy joes recipe which is made from scratch without the high fructose corn sugar and other nasty ingredients. These Paleo Sloppy Joes were SO good. How can they not be? I mean, they have BACON! I was really surprised by how much the whole family loved these sloppy joes. We only had half a serving left and I devoured it for lunch. The leftover filling was so good served on top of the sweet potatoes for lunch.

I really like the contrast of the strong flavor of the20-Minute Paleo BBQ Sauce Recipewith the plainPaleo Hamburger Buns Recipe. One of the nice things about these sloppy joes and that I've served them lots of times to my family that thinks I'm weird for eating Paleo and they could care less they are Paleo.

Basically, they are just homemade and they are way better than the sloppy joes I grew up eating that sauce my mom made from a packet. I hated those. I'm actually kind of surprised that I even attempted to make homemade sloppy joes, but my daughter had them at a friend's house one night and loved them, so I thought I would give it a try. Boy! I'm glad I did. These are a staple now at our house.

I'm often too lazy to make the Paleo hamburger buns, so I'll just eat it out of the bowl plain with veggies or on a baked sweet potato and let my children use some whole wheat bread to eat with them. Or I serve them at a family party with "real" hamburger buns.

The homemade sauce tastes so much better than the canned stuff and it's easy to make. I like to blend up the onion and pepper so my kids don't know they are in there, but you still get the flavor from them.

This took a little bit longer to make all of the different parts but it was nice because I already the sauce made and the buns don't have to cook very long. I served the these with roasted Perfect, Baked Paleo Sweet Potato Fries Recipe.

This is a great recipe for the summertime! It doesn't get better than a "gooey messy burger." I also might eat ourCurried, Baked Keto Zucchini Chips Recipewith this recipe or a simple fruit or vegetable on the side to supplement the sloppy joe.

Can you freeze these?

This is a good example of a freezer recipe we make often in our house. How I do it is I use four pounds of 80% ground beef and one pound of ground turkey meat. I just put it straight in the slow cooker without unthawing it first (if the meat was frozen) and put it in a big hunk. I put it on high and let it cook for two hours or so and then scoop out all the fat at once with a large spoon or ladle.

Then the meat is ready to break up. Since it is mostly cooked when I do it, I usually only have to break it upabout two times. Once the meat is cooked I add the rest of the ingredients. To save money I buy the #10 cans of tomatoes from Costco for like $3 and blend them real quick in the blender because I want the tomatoes to be really smooth like how sloppy joes traditionally are.

If I have any leftover tomato "sauce" I put it in 2 cup containers and then the next time a recipe calls for a can of tomatoes, I pulla container from my fridge. Or, more often I use it for pizzaand just use some and put it back in the freezer. You could easily spend $10 on that many tomatoes otherwise and this way there is no waste. I still can't believe it's that cheap for that many cannedtomatoes at Costco!

Then we eat fresh that night and freeze the leftovers in individual containers after it has cooled down. My children and even I love to pull a serving out and eat it for lunch or dinner when we are in a hurry.

If I am making the Paleo buns with this recipe I usually make them fresh or refrigerate them for a day or two. Then my meal really tastes fresh. Sometimes I will buy "regular" buns or rolls from the store for my children and leave them in the fridge if I think they will be eaten in the next two weeks to add to them. One of my children prefers to eat just the meat and doesn't want a bun at all.

I still haven't tried to freeze sweet potato fries so let me know if you have tried that but I love to fill my oven with sweet potatoes and bake a bunch all at the same time, put them on the counter to cool then scoop them out with a spoon, put them in a bowl and mash them real quick with a fork before I put them in individual freezer containers.

I'm not much of a bun person so my favorite thing to do is pull out a serving of sweet potatoes and top them with a serving of sloppy joes. It tastes the same as when I cooked the food fresh aka it tastes like I cooked it all day. It's good enough I would serve it for company. Seriously.

I would love to know if you make these and what you think. Please comment below and let me know!

Recipe

Crock Pot Paleo Sloppy Joes Recipe

★★★★★5 from 4 reviews

Author: Rebecca Baron
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 120 minutes
Total Time: 135 minutes
Yield: 8 1x
Category: Main Course
Cuisine: Paleo

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Description

This homemade sloppy joe sauce tastes so much better than the canned stuff and it's easy to make. I like to blend up the onion and pepper so my kids don't know they are in there, but you still get the flavor from them.

Ingredients

Scale

2 pounds Ground Beef
12 ounces Bacon (sliced into ½" pieces)
1 Onion (diced)
1 Bell Pepper (diced)
Paleo BBQ Sauce
Paleo Buns

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Instructions

In a large skillet, brown and crumble the ground beef. Add the beef to a slow cooker.
Add the diced bacon to the same pan the beef was cooked in (no need to wash) and cook until it is just starting to brown.
Add the onion and green pepper to the bacon and saute until the bacon is fully cooked, and the onion and pepper are soft and translucent. Add the bacon, onion, and pepper to the slow cooker.
Add the BBQ sauce ingredients to the slow cooker, stir well, and heat on low for 2 hours.
Serve on my Paleo buns.

Keywords: Savory, Healthy, Homemade, Easy

Reader Interactions

Comments

Melinda S
April 15, 2020 at 9:07 pm
This was amazing, my whole family loved it! I accidentally used red wine vinegar instead of balsamic but I'm going to stick with it since it was a hit. 🙂
★★★★★
Reply
- Rebecca Baron
  April 17, 2020 at 7:01 pm
  Interesting. I would have never thought of red wine vinegar. I'm glad you liked it!
  Reply
Donner
May 22, 2018 at 9:59 am
Love the blender idea!
★★★★★
Reply
Ushmana Palmo Rai
September 03, 2017 at 11:33 am
Bacon and ground beef? Sloppy Joes? YUM!
Very mouthwatering and with so much less ingredients! Boy, am I lucky to have found your blog! Keep sharing more!xx
★★★★★
Reply
Shannon Cotsworth
July 31, 2017 at 3:19 pm
I used turkey bacon and turkey meat instead. This was amazing and easy to do. My fiancé even loved it. We used tortilla instead of bread. Amazing. This is going to be a big hit at my next work pot luck.
★★★★★
Reply
Trish
September 03, 2016 at 7:31 am
Hi, I'm looking to do some make ahead meals. Have you tried freezing this? i would imagine it would be fine.
Thanks!
Reply
- Rebecca
  September 06, 2016 at 12:05 pm
  I haven't, but I would think it would be fine too. Please let me know if you try so other readers will know how it turned out.
  Reply
  See Also
  Thanksgiving in a Slow Cooker: 13 Crock Pot Recipes for a Stress-Free Holiday
Stef
January 14, 2016 at 4:21 pm
I made these tonight and they were awesome. Does anyone know the fat, fiber, protein, and carbs info for this recipe for weight watchers??
Reply
- Rebecca
  January 21, 2016 at 7:05 pm
  I am sorry we don't provide the information for our recipes at this time.
  Reply
Christina
October 24, 2015 at 9:38 am
Do yo have a recipe for the paleo buns you could share? I'd love to try these!!
Reply
- Rebecca
  October 24, 2015 at 3:38 pm
  There is a link on the recipe but here it is also, https://www.mynaturalfamily.com/recipes/paleo-recipes/paleo-hamburger-buns/
  Reply
  - Christina
    October 27, 2015 at 7:40 am
    I must have missed the link when I look at it....thank you!!
    Reply
Holiday
October 01, 2015 at 9:22 am
Hi Rebecca. I'm making your sloppy joes tonight, and I'm wondering if I need to make the bbq sauce separately and then add it to the crockpot, or should I just put the individual ingredients for the sauce in the crockpot and cook that way?
Reply
- Rebecca
  October 01, 2015 at 10:51 am
  You can totally just mix it all together, nice and easy.
  Reply
  - Holiday
    October 02, 2015 at 12:06 pm
    We had the sloppy joes last night and they were DEILISH! I've made three of your recipes now, and loved them all. Thank you for sharing!
    Reply
    - Rebecca
      October 07, 2015 at 11:09 am
      I'm glad you like them! I make them a lot for my family, especially for parties. I think I'm going to make them for my Halloween night party so when we get back from Trick or Treating, dinner will be ready to go and my husband can eat it while he stays at home to answer the door.
      Reply
Lori R
September 13, 2015 at 1:32 pm
You mention for the BBQ sauce used with the Sloppy Joes to "Increase the lemon juice to 1 TBL". However, when I click the link for the BBQ sauce recipe, it doesn't have any lemon juice. So what is the correct amount of lemon juice?
You also mention to "Omit the 2 spice blends from the BBQ sauce recipe, but again the BBQ sauce recipe doesn't have any spice "blends". I only see onion powder and smoked paprika in the sauce recipe. So do we just omit the onion powder and use the garlic powder in its place and just use less of the paprika?
Reply
- Rebecca
  September 16, 2015 at 4:34 pm
  Thanks for letting me know and sorry for the confusion, we recently improved our BBQ sauce and so we forgot to remove that. For the Sloppy Joes make the BBQ sauce exactly how it is now shown. 🙂
  Reply
  - Lori R
    September 21, 2015 at 9:16 pm
    Thanks for clearing that up. I look forward to trying this. My daughter's favorite meal is sloppy joes, but I haven't made them since going paleo due to the brown sugar previously used.
    Reply
lorraine
July 13, 2015 at 9:10 am
how much of the Paleo barbeque sauce is used in the recipe? Thx
Reply
- Rebecca
  July 13, 2015 at 11:45 am
  For this recipe we make one batch of our Paleo BBQ Sauce: https://www.mynaturalfamily.com/recipes/paleo-recipes/paleo-bbq-sauce/ and put it with this recipe. One to one ratio. 🙂 Hope that helps
  Reply
Shannon Cotsworth
September 16, 2014 at 6:07 am
I used turkey bacon and turkey meat instead. This was amazing and easy to do. My fiancé even loved it. We used tortilla instead of bread. Amazing. This is going to be a big hit at my next work pot luck.
Reply
- Rebecca
  September 29, 2014 at 5:18 pm
  It really is good and easy, huh? I can't figure out why you would need to buy a packet or use something from a can. This recipe is so good and easy and healthy!
  Reply
- Rebecca
  August 31, 2017 at 2:35 pm
  Thanks for the great tip!
  Reply
Richard Kohout
September 02, 2014 at 10:08 am
What do you mean when you say 'blended' for the peppers and onions. Do you actually put them in a blender (would think they turn into mush that way)? Or are they just to be finely diced?
Thanks,
Reply
- Rebecca
  September 02, 2014 at 10:56 am
  Yes. I just blend them in the blender so it's like a sauce. You get lots of flavor and the kids don't see chunks. They just like the flavor.
  Reply

Crock Pot Paleo Sloppy Joes Recipe {Clean Eating} - My Natural Family (2024)

FAQs

How many pounds of sloppy joes do I need to feed 30 people? ›

To make this recipe for a party, tailgate, or easy dinner with family or friends, plan on 1 pound of ground beef per 8 sandwiches, equaling 4 pounds of ground beef plus four times the amount of vegetables and cans of tomato soup.

Learn More Now ›

Can I reheat sloppy joes in a crock pot? ›

Slow cooker: To reheat your Crock Pot Sloppy Joes from the refrigerator, place the ceramic insert back into your slow cooker and heat on low for 1-2 hours. Stove: Alternatively, you can reheat large batches on the stove over medium low heat, stirring occasionally until the meat is heated through to 165 degrees F.

What is the Joe in Sloppy Joe? ›

What Is a Sloppy Joe? A Sloppy Joe is a sandwich consisting of ground beef and onions in a tomato-based sauce served on a hamburger bun. The sandwich likely originated in Sioux City, Iowa in the 1930s. According to legend, the "loose meat sandwich" was the creation of a cook named Joe.

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What can I add to sloppy joe to make it taste better? ›

Add Veggies: Diced bell peppers, zucchini, spinach, or shredded carrot, can easily be added to this recipe and your kids won't even notice a difference. Hawaiian Sloppy Joes: Substitute more BBQ sauce for the ketchup and add 8 oz., drained crushed pineapple.

Does sour cream help thicken sauce? ›

For an add-in that both thickens and enhances flavor, turn to a versatile, dairy-forward ingredient: sour cream. Sour cream is a common add-in for thickening soups and sauces, but it can also be stirred into gravy for a touch of tang and a smooth, creamy finish.

Find Out More ›

How many people will 1 lb of sloppy joes feed? ›

In general, we call for 1 pound of ground beef to make 6 sandwiches in our sloppy joes recipes. That works out to 3 ounces of ground beef per sandwich. Depending on the size of your bun and how meaty you like your sandwich, you can increase or decrease that amount an ounce or two either way.

What is a fancy name for a Sloppy Joe? ›

Manwich, slush burger, yum yums, dynamite, spoonburgers, tavern sandwich; a Sloppy Joe can be called by many other names. The most well-known however is Manwich.

Discover More ›

What is the nickname for Sloppy Joes? ›

Some other names for sloppy joes include: barbecues, dynamites, gulash, sloppy janes, slushburgers, steamers, wimpies, and yum yums.

Read The Full Story ›

What's the difference between Sloppy Joes and sloppy janes? ›

Unlike traditional can Sloppy Joes, which are often loaded with unhealthy additives and preservatives, Sloppy Janes are made with lean meat, low-fat ingredients, and a variety of fresh vegetables. They are easy to make and require only a few simple ingredients.

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How do you thicken canned Sloppy Joe sauce? ›

Fortunately, there's a simple fix to thicken canned Sloppy Joe sauce if it's lacking the consistency you want. A cornstarch and water slurry is the solution. Cornstarch, like other starches, functions as a spongey material, absorbing water and swelling to create a thicker, less watery sauce.

Discover More Details ›

Can I use cornstarch to thicken sloppy joes? ›

Why Use These for Sloppy Joes? Baking soda helps keep the ground beef moist and tender, and incorporating baking soda into the finely chopped onion causes the onion to soften rapidly so it nearly melts into the sauce. Cornstarch thickens the sauce and binds up any fat, creating a silky-smooth, cohesive texture.

Learn More ›

How do you thicken a runny cold dip? ›

Mixing in Heavy whipping cream and whipping the mixture should give you a thicker consistency while maintaining cold temperatures and should not dilute the flavor, though you might want to adjust your yogurt/whipping cream proportions. If you want an even more thick consistency, you might try butter.

Tell Me More ›

What can I add to dip to thicken it? ›

For a cheese dip or sauce, the addition of cornstarch serves a similar function: Starch molecules absorb water and expand, not only thickening the liquid phase of the sauce, but also physically preventing the proteins from binding into long, tangled strands and the fats from separating out and pooling.

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Crock Pot Paleo Sloppy Joes Recipe {Clean Eating} - My Natural Family (2024)