Sweet, slightly spicy, and superbly satisfying, these Asian inspired sloppy joes are just the thing for a quick weeknight meal!
Did you know that I really like my homemade hoisin sauce? I used as the base for a lot of different things, adjusting some of the spices and ingredients to make it a little different depending on what I’m cooking.
With all the mess that was going on with my blog last week, I needed dinners that were going to be especially quick and easy to throw together since I only had a few hours between work and bedtime to get things back up and correct.
This website debacle has been a hard lesson, I’ll tell you what. Even though I had back-ups, I only had them saved on my hosts server which, from the way I understand, was hacked and bad stuff was coded into the plugin files. So the most recent back-up that was viable was from 5/3. They caught it right away but I had issues getting it restored on my own. After a week, we finally got it mostly restored but I was missing posts and all of my plugins.
So I got the plugins restores and it took me a bit to get the 6 missing posts deciphered out of my sql file. Now I have the back-ups saved in a few different places so and saved at different times so hopefully I won’t have to go through all this again.
But from this experience, I also got a few yummy meals! These sloppy joes were AMAZING. They were sweet. They were spicy. They were filling and they were FAST! It was like having Chinese take out on a bun. I used reduced fat ground pork but you could also use ground chicken or turkey. The meat was browned and cooked most of the way through and then the sauce was mixed in and heated through.
While the sloppy joes were cooking, I also made gingered sugar snap peas and carrots. I just sautéed peas and carrots in olive oil then stirred in brown sugar, ginger and crushed red pepper in with them at the end.
This ended up being one of those meals that was extremely satisfying but deceptively not bad for you. I had the leftovers for lunch, of course, but ate the filling in flour tortillas since I didn’t have any more buns. The sloppy joes were surprisingly good as wraps and I foresee these again on a future menu!
- 1/4 c soy sauce
- 1/4 c sweet chile sauce
- 1/4 c peanut putter ( creamy or crunchy)
- 1/4 c lime juice
- 2 Tbsp honey
- 2 Tbsp minced jarred garlic
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 lb reduced-fat ground pork (or chicken or turkey)
- 15 oz can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, drained
- 8 hamburger-sized buns
- Heat a large nonstick skillet over med-high heat.
- Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, chile sauce, peanut butter, lime juice, honey, garlic, rice vinegar, sesame oil, ginger, and black pepper until well mixed. Set aside.
- Cook the ground pork in the skillet, stirring and crumbling the meat while it cooks. Once it is cooked most of the way through, about 5-7 minutes, whisk the sauce and pour into the skillet with the pork. Stir and let simmer, stirring occasionally, until the pork is cooked through and the sauce has thickened, 7-10 minutes longer.
- Serve on buns.
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 4 med carrots, peeled and diagonally sliced into 1/4″ slices
- 8 oz sugar snap peas
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/8-1/4 crushed red pepper flakes
- Black pepper, to taste
- In a large nonstick skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
- Stir in the carrots and peas and cook, stirring, until tender-crisp, about 5-7 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, ginger, salt, crushed red pepper, and black pepper. When the veggies seem a couple minutes away from being done, sprinkle the sugar-spice mixture over the peas and carrots and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.
- Serve immediately.
Get Off the Couch and Cook 
Ooohhhh that looks and sounds so tasty! I’ll hqve to give this one a try!
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