Simple ingredients you just might have on hand can make a quick and hearty soup that tastes a lot like sloppy joes. No bun needed! If you are on the GAPS diet, you can still enjoy something pretty close to sloppy joe flavor with this GAPS beef soup! If you aren’t on GAPS, you will still love this nourishing, rich soup.
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Do you love sloppy joes? Do you miss sloppy joes on GAPS or a grain free diet?
Did you grow up with sloppy joes? I didn’t, but my husband did, and that is probably how they made it into our meal rotations. As we improved out diet, we switched from the canned sauce to a version I made using simple, unprocessed ingredients. That tasted even better than the canned version!
After some of us cut out gluten due to celiac disease, and prior to the GAPS diet, we ate sloppy joe meat on top of rice sometimes, or, even better, scooped it up with tortilla chips. The chips are better than buns any day!
We couldn’t do rice or chips on GAPS, though.
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Our little Sloppy Joe Soup story
It might not have occurred to me to concoct a sloppy joe substitute had my son not told me that my stuffed pepper soup tasted just like sloppy joes. What?! We hadn’t had sloppy joes for some time while we were on GAPS, for obvious reasons. Apparently he forgot what they taste like…
Naturally, we had a friendly argument about the comparison between sloppy joes and stuffed pepper soup. I accepted the challenge– sloppy joe soup would become a thing.
A thing that does NOT taste like a stuffed pepper!
We liked it. We will make it again. I will not say I-told-you-so. Not even once. The two soups admittedly have many of the same ingredients, but they taste quite different. Both are hearty, nourishing, and quick to make. If you are on GAPS, a variety of soups is a really good thing!
How to Make Sloppy Joe Soup
- Brown ground beef in a large pot. I used my 6 quart.
2. While the beef browns, chop the veggies and add them when the beef is browned or only a bit pink.
3. Stir in the seasonings and add broth and tomato sauce. Adjust the seasonings to your taste.
That is all! It really is simple and fast!
Sloppy Joe Soup
Ingredients
- 3 lbs ground beef
- 2 onions
- 2 bell peppers
- 6-8 cloves garlic
- 1 quart meat stock
- 1 jar pasta sauce mine was 23.5 oz, but no need to be exact
- 2 tsp caraway seeds
- 3 T honey or sugar
- 1 T apple cider or red wine vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large pot over medium heat, brown the ground beef.
- Chop the onions, peppers, and garlic and add to the beef once it is mostly cooked through.
- Stir in caraway seeds and cook until the veggies soften and the beef is fully cooked.
- Add the meat stock, pasta sauce, honey and vinegar and heat thoroughly.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.
Notes
Make It a GAPS Beef Soup
- use a properly prepared GAPS meat stock rather than bone broth or store bought stock, even if it isn’t beef broth
- use honey for sweetener, as opposed to sugar
- opt for cider vinegar– red wine vinegar isn’t a GAPS ingredient
- even though it isn’t quite like sloppy joes, you could use the beef left from making beef stock instead of ground beef, or use a mix of the two
Let me know if you tried this soup! Do you like sloppy joes best with buns, chips, or as a soup? (I am leaning a bit toward soup, but someday I want to have them with chips again!)
