Lentil Sloppy Joes – THE best vegetarian dinner for a carnivore

In my never-ending quest to find tasty, real-food** vegetarian entrees, I hit on one that was simply terrific. Lentil sloppy Joes, which carnivore Craig aptly named “Faux Joes”. These are absolutely delicious, nicely spiced, great texture, and easy because you throw everything in the slow cooker and you’re done.

**I’ve read recommendations to use fake meat products to ease a meat-eater into the world of acceptable vegetarian, but if you read those labels, these kinds of “food” violate my rule of only eating what you can pronounce. Typically soy-based protein, they are chocked full of sodium, chemicals, preservatives, and the like. No thank you. If I can’t make real-food vegetarian that Craig likes, we will eat continue to just eat animal proteins.

I digress. Back to the faux Joe recipe. It’s simple to prepare because you likely have everything in your panty called to prepare these. And it’s flexible for serving. Craig ate his on one of those thin 100-calorie wheat flats (bun?), and I had it over faux cauliflower rice. You may be sensing a faux theme, but it’s only because we’ve been purposely increasing our vegetable intake and reducing wheat and carbs. I’ve known how to substitute spaghetti squash and grated zucchini/yellow squash for this purpose, but recently we’ve learned how flexible cauliflower is used in lieu of mashed potatoes, rice, risotto, even pizza crust (a forthcoming blog post).

Even if you are cooking for a conventional meat-and-potatoes eater, you will have success because these are that good. Aside from the orb shape of the lentils, your taste buds will deceive you into thinking you are eating real sloppy Joe’s.

Tasting notes:  Craig enjoyed a few spoonfuls of homemade beer BBQ atop his (which would also be a nice addition while simmering in the slow cooker), as well as a wedge of Laughing Cow bleu cheese on his bun. Chopped green onions are good, too.

Lentil Faux Joes

4-5 servings

1 cup dried lentils, picked over (not red lentils; they would get too mushy)

1 1/2 cups low sodium vegetable broth

15 ounce canned tomatoes

1/4 cup + 1 table spoon tomato paste

3/4 cups onion, chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped (about 3/4 cups)

1T apple cider vinegar

1T garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1T chili powder

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne (or more depending on your tastes)

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker; stir until well combined and cook on high, covered, for 3 to 4 hours on high or 7 to 8 hours on low, depending how fast your device cooks.

Taste test to ensure lentils are cooked through. If not, cover and cook in 30 minute increments until soft.

If too much liquid remains, cook on high without the lid for 30 to 60 minutes, keeping in mind these thicken as it sits.

Buffalo Sloppy Joes for Secret Recipe Club

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I knew Buffalo would be the recipe. SRC is where each member is assigned another participant’s blog, selects a recipe, makes it, then blogs about it, with all entries posting on the same day, I was assigned Debbi Does Dinner. Debbi’s blog is full of dinner recipes that are not only delicious and filling but nutritious. I debated between the Buffalo chicken stuffed shells, the Buffalo chicken shepherd’s pie, Buffalo chickpea patties (how cool!), and sloppy Buffalo Joes. Are you sensing a theme here? She and I (and those we cook for) obviously share a love of hot and spicy! Being a Weight Watcher, I appreciate that Debbi focuses on easy, healthy recipes.

Buffalo Sloppy Joe

With it being 100+ degrees in St. Louis for nine consecutive days and counting, I finally decided on something simple for lunch and went with the sloppy Buffalo Joes. No matter how sophisticated your palate, sometimes nothing hits the spot like a sloppy Joe. Total comfort food. Even Garde Manger Chef Connor asked me to set some aside for him to have when he gets off work tonight. This was a good choice. Actually, a great choice. These have a nice amount of smoky spicy kick from Frank’s Wing Sauce, and next time I may add a bit more of it. Based on a Rachael Ray recipe, Debbi cautions the original directions result in a soupy mess, so I reduced the liquid (tomato sauce and omitted the chicken stock altogether) even further from Debbi’s recipe because we like our sloppy Joes thick thick. I used grass-fed ground beef (but ground chicken or turkey would work well too) and sure wished I had celery in the house to add to give it a bit more crunchy and authentic “Buffalo” style. I added the optional ingredients of diced homemade dill pickles and half a wedge of my new fave Laughing Cow blue cheese. I'm don't know if this was one of Rachel Ray's 30 minutes meals, but it qualifies. Very easy to pull together for a fast and dinner or lunch. Thanks, Debbi for such a tasty, healthy, and super simple sandwich!

The recipe below reflects my changes.

Sloppy Buffalo Joes

Makes 8 4-ounce sandwiches

2 pounds grass-fed ground beef (or ground chicken breast or ground turkey breast)

1 carrot, peeled and chopped or grated

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 T red wine vinegar

2 T brown sugar

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1/3 C hot sauce (recommended: Frank's Red Hot)

1/2 C tomato sauce

8 good quality burger rolls, split and toasted

1 wedge Laughing Cow cup blue cheese wedge per sandwich

Dill pickles, chopped

Heat a large skillet with extra-virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. Add meat and break it up with wooden spoon, cook 5 to 6 minutes. Add in carrots, onions, and garlic, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, cook 7 to 8 minutes more. In a bowl combine the vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire, hot sauce, and tomato sauce. Pour into the pan and stir to combine. Simmer a few minutes more.

Pile sloppy Buffalo filling onto buns and top with blue cheese and chopped pickles.

Print recipe.

Sensitive New Age Sloppy Joes

It’s complicated. Somehow I only managed to menu plan this week through Wednesday. It came to the end-of-the-work day today, around 6:30PM, and I had the look of, “What’s for dinner?” I pulled some ground bison from the freezer and decided Sloppy Joes would be a perfect comfort food after a challenging work day. Later I learned how much my guys heart Sloppy Joes. They were high-fiving over it. Seriously. Mom was finally making “normal” food, until Craig saw me with the jalapeños, cumin, allspice, molasses (?!), apple cider. Certainly not Manwich. What the hell is that??

This is modified from a tofu recipe from Rebar, a vegetarian restaurant in Victoria, British Columbia, where we dined a number of years that even Craig REALLY liked. The problem was I had no tofu, but I had bison.

These are THE best Sloppy Joes I’ve ever made. Yes, campy, but with bold flavors, generously seasoned. With the additions of beans as specified in the original recipe, it would make a tasty chili. We served it with coleslaw and chips.

(In) Sensitive New Age Sloppy Joes - the Meat Version 

Serves 4

1 T vegetable oil

1/2 yellow onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp salt

2 jalapeno peppers, minced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ancho chile powder

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1 1/2 T molasses

2 chipotle peppers diced

1 teaspoon adobo sauce from the chipotles

1/2 cup tomato sauce ** I used leftover homemade pizza sauce, so I would season plain tomato sauce a bt

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

1/2 tomatoes, chopped

4 whole wheat Kaiser buns

Heat oil in wide-bottomed pot. Sauté onion with 1 tsp salt until translucent. Add garlic, jalapenos, red pepper and sauté until vegetables soften. Add the bison and cook until no longer pink. Add the cumin, chile powder, and allspice. Sauté for a few minutes. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Cover partially and simmer for 30 minutes.

To serve, split Kaiser buns and generously ladle the Sloppy Joes over the bottom half of the bun. Replace the top and serve.

Make sure each serving is sufficiently SLOPPY and enjoy!