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.
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes undrained
- 1 cup small yellow onion minced (about 1 1/4 )
- 1 pound ground turkey or lean ground beef
- 1-2 teaspoons dry mustard
- 1 small red or green bell pepper diced
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 stalk celery diced
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon catsup
- Coarse kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- Dash hot sauce optional
- 4 split hamburger buns toasted
- 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, sugar, Worcestershire Sauce, catsup and hot sauce and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is thickened and heated through, about 8 to 10 minutes. Taste meat mixture, adjust seasonings and season with salt and pepper; divide among buns and serve.
Looking for a unique sloppy joe flavor recipe? How about these Asian Sloppy Joe Sliders? They’re really good.
Asian Sloppy Joe Sliders
Perfect Sloppy Joes Recipe …It’s what’s for Dinner.
Denise Browning@From Brazil To You says
May 26, 2014 at 9:41 amGreat 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.
Lea Ann Brown says
June 6, 2014 at 5:51 amI had never thought about the chicken/turkey. Makes sense that chicken would be better. Thanks Denise.