Make your peace with Sloppy Joes. This is a just-right flavored, no guess, recipe for Perfect Sloppy Joes. Make these with ground beef, ground turkey, or a combo of half ground beef and half Italian Sausage. Delicious.
Is ground turkey healthier than ground beef? NO…at least not the way I’ve been buying it.
Over the last few weeks, I found myself picking up ground turkey for a couple of recipes. One for a lettuce wrap and then for my recipe for Sloppy Joes. Why ground turkey? Because I read an article that ground turkey is healthier than ground beef. The article billed ground turkey as a healthier option for Sloppy Joes. Here’s how the intro read “This recipe gives an all-time classic sandwich a healthy makeover. Lean ground turkey and lots of fresh veggies make these overstuffed, ultra-satisfying sloppy Joes a little lighter without sacrificing taste.“
When I was having leftovers the next day I started wondering about that statement. I didn’t want to dig through the trash to find the nutrition label on the package, so decided to do a comparison on a web site I found, Self Nutrition Data. It’s a great site that that provides easy reference for nutritional information on all foods, and once you register, you can side by side compare foods. Here’s what they tell me for ground turkey vs. ground beef. I compared how I shop and what I would buy, which is ground turkey that contains dark meat vs. 90-10 ground beef. To compare apples to apples, the only choice was to select one ounce, cooked. Let’s take a look.
Ground Turkey 90-10 Ground Beef
Lean ground beef is a better alternative to ground turkey, unless you pick up ground turkey breast instead. Nutrition from the Jennie-O site:
This turkey breast chart isn’t a direct weight comparison to the first charts. 112 grams is about 4 ounces. As suspected, ground turkey breast is a healthier choice than regular ground turkey and lean ground beef. And according to Self Nutrition Data, regular ground turkey is slightly higher in calories, fat and even cholesterol than 90-10 lean ground beef.
So what’s the most important thing I learned from all of this? It was how to take screen shots from a website and then save it as a jpg and insert it into a blog post. It was somewhat of a saga. 🙂 I’ve always been a label reader, but also learned that with so many different grind mixes from so many different sources, that meats can be a tricky comparison. Especially when the recipe only indicates “lean ground turkey” not specifically “extra lean ground turkey breast”.
I’ll keep buying 90-10 lean ground beef for Joes and 80-20 for burgers. But when looking for a healthier alternative, will spend the extra dollars for extra lean ground turkey breast rather than regular ground turkey… but then what about those potato chips? I suppose I could eat just one. 🙂
And I almost forgot about this recipe. Whether using beef or turkey, it’s a tasty Sloppy Joes Recipe.
Perfect Sloppy Joes
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup small yellow onion minced (about 1 ¼ )
- 1 small red or green bell pepper diced
- 1 stalk celery diced
- Coarse kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- 1 pound ground turkey or lean ground beef
- 1 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes undrained
- 1-2 teaspoons dry mustard
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon catsup
- Dash hot sauce optional
- 4 hamburger buns toasted
Instructions
- Heat oil in a 12-inch frying pan over medium high. Add onion, bell pepper and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft and just beginning to brown, about 6 to 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add turkey or beef and cook, stirring occasionally and breaking up lumps with a wooden spoon or spatula, until meat is no longer pink, about 6 minutes.
- Add tomatoes, mustard, brown sugar, Worcestershire Sauce, catsup and hot sauce and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is thickened, tomatoes are starting to break down and everything is heated through, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Taste meat mixture, adjust seasonings and season with salt and pepper; divide among buns and serve.
Nutrition
Perfect Sloppy Joes Recipe …It’s what’s for Dinner.
Why Trust These Recipes? Lea Ann Brown has lived, worked and played in Colorado for 45 years. She has immersed herself in the Colorado Culinary space, is a Culinary School Graduate and publishes her Colorado food Blog, Cooking On The Ranch.
Great point, Lea Ann! Lean ground beef is better than ground turkey. I have noticed this also when I buy sliced deli turkey and chicken. The oven-roasted deli chicken is leaner than the deli turkey. Something that one would never imagined if did not take a look at the nutritional back label. These sloppy joes look awesome! My hubby is a big fan of sloppy joes.
I had never thought about the chicken/turkey. Makes sense that chicken would be better. Thanks Denise.
The joes look really tasty. I’m surprised by the nutritional comparison as we’re always being told that turkey is a much healthier alternative to red meat. I suppose it teaches us to look at the labels.
Yes, I should have known that only the white meat would be the healthy ticket. Thanks for stopping in.
Sloppy Joes look awesome! I use ground turkey a lot! I prefer it over ground beef – for taste and texture – and I’ve gotten away from eating red meat – will only eat it once in a blue-moon. Great job on the labels BTW!
Thanks Deborah.
The day anyone eats just one potato chip should be named a national holiday! Not going to happen. 😉 Interesting info about the difference between most ground turkey and lean ground beef. The real secret to eating lighter is just to eat less. But like eating just one potato chip, not going to happen for most of us! So ground turkey breast looks like a good compromise. Nice recipe, great post — thanks.
You are preaching to the choir about eating lighter. If we all ate lean meats and veggies we’d be healthy!
So glad you researched all of this Lea Ann; even learning how to add a jpg to your post. Ha! It is nice to know that I can continue enjoying ground beef. The only ground turkey recipe I really love is Ina Garten’s Turkey meatloaf. But I bet this sloppy joe is outstanding.
If Ina makes a turkey meatloaf, I know I’d like it. Thanks Penny.
Very interesting! I totally thought ground turkey would be healthier than ground beef. These sloppy joes look AMAZING!
Thanks Pam.