Easy Slow Cooker Italian Sloppy Joes
Switch up your sloppy joe night with these Easy Slow Cooker Italian Sloppy Joes! They are full of flavor and take just 20 minutes to prep!
It’s the final week of Slow Cooker September! I hope you guys brought out the slow cookers and tried a few of these meals. Don’t forget to tag me if you try a recipe (@myeverydaytable or #myeverydaytable), I love love LOVE to see your creations.
I love sloppy joes, but I rarely use the sauce from the can. Not because I think I’m too good for a canned sloppy joe sauce (you know I don’t think nutrition should be perfect!) but because I’ve found that it’s pretty easy to make a sauce with things I already have in my pantry.
Easy Slow Cooker Italian Sloppy Joes
You may be wondering: what makes these sloppy joes Italian? Well! First it’s the combination of meat. Instead of all ground beef, we use a combination of ground beef and Italian sausage, which obviously imparts some Italian flavors. Then the sauce includes tomato paste and balsamic vinegar, which give these sloppy joes a really deep flavor and hit of acid to balance out the rich meat. THEN, instead of putting the Italian sloppy joes on a hamburger bun, we put it on garlic toast and top it with some fresh parsley.
YUM!
This is one of those slow cooker meals that requires a quick browning of the meat. I’ve found that with many ground meat slow cooker recipes, if you don’t brown the meat, the texture gets a little mushy. If you are really pressed for time and don’t care about mushy meat, you could definitely skip that step, but the few minutes it takes is definitely worth it in my opinion.
I recommend serving these easy slow cooker Italian sloppy joes with a simple side salad – you can use bottled dressing or make your own quick vinaigrette – whatever you prefer and have time for.
Easy Slow Cooker Italian Sloppy Joes Recipe:
Print
Easy Slow Cooker Italian Sloppy Joes
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 hours
- Total Time: 4 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: Italian
Description
Switch up your sloppy joe night with these Easy Slow Cooker Italian Sloppy Joes! They are full of flavor and take just 20 minutes to prep!
Ingredients
- 1 large white onions (about 2 cups chopped)
- 1 red pepper (about 1 1/2 cups chopped)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 16 ounces ground beef (85% lean)
- 16 ounces ground Italian sausage
- 6 ounces tomato paste
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt + more for serving
- 16 slices bread
- 6 tablespoons soft butter
- garlic powder
- 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
- 5–10 ounces washed salad greens
- favorite bottled dressing
Instructions
- Prepare vegetables: chop onions and pepper and mince garlic cloves.
- Heat large pan over medium high heat (about 6-7). When pan is hot, add meat and onions, breaking up with the back of a wooden spoon or spatula. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 7-8 minutes, or until meat has browned. Season meat with 1/2 tsp. salt and transfer meat to slow cooker.
- Add garlic, tomato paste, balsamic vinegar, and black pepper to slow cooker and stir together. Cook on high for 4 hours.
- 15 minutes before it’s time to eat, preheat the broiler for 5 minutes.
- Spread bread with butter (about 1/2 Tbsp. per slice or to your preference) and sprinkle with some garlic powder (a thin sprinkle over the bread should be plenty). Broil for 1-2 minutes, until golden brown. Watch very carefully as it cooks quickly!
- Serve meat over toast, sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve salad on the side.
Notes
Get your kids involved! They can: stir meat mixture together in the slow cooker, butter the bread slices, and sprinkle sloppy joes with parsley.
Italian sausage: you want raw sausage here, and ideally it’s not in casings. If you can only find it with the casings on, just carefully slit the casing and remove the sausage, discarding the casings.
Nutrition facts do not include salad and salad dressing.
I used all Italian sausage because that’s all I had and skipped the ground beef, and wow it was so good and spicy. The balsamic really makes the sauce something special.