Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes

4 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes are the perfect sloppy joe with garlic, salty bacon and sweet brown sugar. This will be your new favorite sloppy joe!

We are obsessed with Sloppy Joes and as we were recipe testing we happened to be enjoying our favorite meatloaf Glazed Brown Sugar Meatloaf when the idea for this recipe popped into our heads.

Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes  Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes

Sloppy Joes. Easy Sloppy Joes Recipes. Are you folks ready? We’re starting a new WEEKLY series on here. I don’t have a fancy name for it. I just know we love all things sloppy joes and we’ve been enjoying them for months in anticipation of this moment.

We’re going to be enjoying these sloppy joes through the new year! On Monday’s I’ll be posting a new, delicious, easy sloppy joe recipe for you all to enjoy. My hope is that you will say, “uh, yes please” and go out and get the ingredients.

The ones I post on Mondays are the exact same recipe we will be enjoying Wednesday in our house. So if you shop and cook it two days from now on Wednesday, we will be enjoying the same dinner!

Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes in Skillet

Why Sloppy Joes? How are Sloppy Joe’s different than Hamburgers?

We LOVE sloppy joes because they’re softer/more tender, easier to eat than hamburgers and we can adjust the filling amount easily per person. PLUS THE SAUCE. Yes, the sauce is so much better than just adding a sauce to your hamburger bun. This keeps the whole sandwich juicy and full of flavor.

PLUS, it’s easy. One package of ground beef, one potato masher and a few ingredients is all that you need to make delicious sloppy joes. It simmers while you prepare the rest of your dinner and if it gets dry you need to just add a bit of water to loosen the sauce back up again.

Bacon Brown Sugar? Oh yes, if you love this blog you know my love for all things bacon and brown sugar!

Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes

What goes good with sloppy joes for a side dish?

We love serving sloppy joes with Crispy Sweet Potato FriesBeer Battered Onion RingsLoaded Garlic French Fries or your favorite roasted vegetables.

Some good rules of thumb for making these Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes:

  • Make sure your ingredients are ready ahead of time, don’t let the pan scorch.
  • Make sure you drain excess fat from the beef, I use 85/15 to minimize excess fat.
  • Don’t let the sauce reduce until dry, stop the cooking when it still looks nice and saucy.
  • Sauce will continue to reduce even after you turn off the heat.
  • If you want to meal prep just leave the sauce extra saucy before shutting off the heat. You may need a bit of water when reheating.
  • We love adding cheese to the mixture before serving. Just don’t add the cheese too early, add just early enough to allow it to melt slightly.

Easy Sloppy Joes with Bacon

Are you going to join us and enjoy this recipe on Wednesday? Remember if you make this dish this Wednesday, we’ll be having the same dinner. I’d love to know how it turns out for you so if you do make the recipe pretty please come back and leave a comment letting me know how it turned out for you.

We put a ton of effort into recipe testing 35 Sloppy Joes for this weekly series! The reason we did (aside from the fact we LOVE them) is because you all have gone nuts for ALL 4 of the sloppy joes on the site!

Pin this recipe now to remember it later

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Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes

Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes are the perfect sloppy joe with garlic, salty bacon and sweet brown sugar. This will be your new favorite sloppy joe!
Yield 4 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 1/2 pound thick sliced bacon chopped
  • 1 cup yellow onion diced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 red bell pepper chopped finely
  • 1 1/2 pounds ground beef (85/15 fat content)
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 2 cups tomato sauce
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 4 brioche rolls
  • Bacon slices optional
  • brown sugar optional

Instructions

  • In a large skillet cook the bacon on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes or until crispy but still bendable.
  • Remove the bacon from the pan and reserve about 2 tablespoons of the oil to cook the onion, garlic and red bell pepper.
  • Once softened add in the beef, lower the heat to medium and cook well, breaking it apart but leaving some chunks about the size of a raspberry or small grape (don't crush the heck out of it, the larger crumbles will help give the sandwich stability).
  • Cook until well browned (5-6 minutes), then add in the paprika, tomato paste, tomato sauce and brown sugar.
  • Stir well, continue cooking until the sauce starts to evaporate and the mixture becomes "sloppy" (about 5-6 minutes).
  • The consistency you are looking for is reduced enough that spoonfuls can be placed on top of each other with the bottom spoonful not spreading more than a half inch or so.
  • Add the bacon back in.
  • Toast the buns then spoon over the mixture and top with additional bacon and sprinkle of brown sugar (if desired).

Nutrition

Calories: 785kcal | Carbohydrates: 28g | Protein: 39g | Fat: 56g | Saturated Fat: 20g | Cholesterol: 158mg | Sodium: 1201mg | Potassium: 1208mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 22g | Vitamin A: 1850IU | Vitamin C: 51.7mg | Calcium: 76mg | Iron: 5.4mg
Keyword: Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes, easy, ground beef, one pan, sloppy joes, weeknight dinner

Bacon Brown Sugar Sloppy Joes

 

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Once this is made, can it be put in a crock put to keep warm? I would love to take this camping and serve it to about 25 people there and this would be the easiest way to make a larger quantity and keep it warm . Sounds delicious!!!!

  2. Love your recipes! Just recently found all of your different sloppy joe ones so I’ve been trying to make a new one each week. However my mother just found out she has really high cholesterol so I was wondering if you think there would be a big difference using ground chicken or turkey.

    1. I’m so glad you’re loving them so much! It will adjust the flavor a little but it’ll still be delicious.

  3. I made these for dinner tonight…..yummy.. Made it exactly as directed as I believe the first time you try a recipe you should try it as is. It was very good. My new go to recipe. Thank you!!

  4. REALLY difficult to scroll down to actual recipe w/o a hoard of annoying ads :P. A lot of food blogs are like that. I usually won’t go back. Your sloppy Joes look good, but the many ads are too annoying for me.

    1. Oops, sorry about that! You’ll want to add the bacon back in at the end. I’ve updated the recipe card.

  5. Yes Yes I just finished making these and the family loved them. I’m lucky, I got to make a couple for work later. I’m sorry, I changed up one thing—my family likes when I cook bacon so I cooked it my way in oven then close to the end when I put the Brown sugar I crumbled the bacon into pieces—and you know what family was happy and full. I usually get my recipes from here on Pinterest..this makes #3 of things I’ve made from ‘Dinner then Dessert recipes. Thank you. I can’t wait to pick out #4 of things to cook on here