Meals · Sandwiches, burgers & wraps

Sloppy joes

Name: Sloppy joes
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 lb 90% lean ground beef; 1 yellow onions, diced; 1 small green bell peppers, diced; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1/2 cup ketchup; 2 tbsp tomato paste; 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 2 tsp Dijon mustard; 1 tbsp brown sugar; 1/2 cup water; 1/2 tsp salt; 4 hamburger buns, toasted

The weeknight nostalgia machine: saucy tangy-sweet beef piled on a toasted bun with a stack of napkins. Twenty minutes, one pan, no can involved.

Time: 25 min (10 prep + 15 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 439 kcal
Protein: 31 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

1 lb 90% lean ground beef500 g
1 yellow onions, diced120 g
1 small green bell peppers, diced100 g
2 cloves garlic, minced8 g
1/2 cup ketchup120 g
2 tbsp tomato paste33 g
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce15 g
2 tsp Dijon mustard10 g
1 tbsp brown sugar12 g
1/2 cup water120 g
1/2 tsp salt3 g
4 hamburger buns, toasted200 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Brown the beef hard, then soften the onion and pepper in the same pan, garlic last.
Stir in everything except the buns and simmer 8–10 minutes until thick enough to sit on bread without escaping. Mostly.
Taste — the balance point is tangy first, sweet second.
Pile onto toasted buns. The toasting is load-bearing: untoasted buns dissolve.

Why this score

moderately filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

29% of kcal

63% water

5 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1757 kcal goes into the pot, 1241 g of ingredients comes out as ~1000 g of food → 176 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 176
Protein: (29%); 12 g
Fat: (31%); 6 g
Carbohydrates: (40%); 17 g
of which sugar: 7 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 395 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.