Zesty Texas-Style Crockpot Sloppy Joes

Who doesn’t love sloppy joes? I tend to sing the Adam Sandler song about sloppy joes as I put this recipe together, but I’ve always been classy like that. This sloppy joe recipe will become your family’s favorite sloppy joe recipe after one meal – it happened that way at my house!

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef, crumbled, cooked, and WELL DRAINED
1 teaspoon garlic powder
one large onion, finely chopped
one green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 raw carrot, finely chopped
1/4 cup Texas Pepper Jelly’s Candied Jalapenos, chopped fine
1 can black beans, drained and mashed
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
dash cumin
dash black pepper
dash chili powder

What to do:

Put everything in your crockpot and stir well. Set dial to “low” and forget about it for 6 hours or so.

Set out the bun, chips, and tossed salad, and you’ve got a nutritious, delicious meal. All those vegetables in the mixture make these sloppy joes into a dinner, not merely a lunch. This isn’t junk food, parents – it’s GOOD for your kids!

Sometimes I use mashed refried beans instead of black beans; my kids like it that way, too, but they prefer the black beans.

I also break the crockpot rules and will occasionally remove the lid and give the mixture a stir. If it seems dry, add a little – VERY little – water.

Texas-style Zesty Sloppy Joes are a perfect football-fan food, too!