The Best Easy Chicken Gumbo Sloppy Joes

❤️ Why It Is Our Favorite

These sloppy joes are made with Cambell’s chicken gumbo soup and Worcestershire sauce for a bit of southern sweet and zesty flare and are the perfect taste of home to leave you feeling nostalgic for your childhood. But that’s not the only reason why you will love this recipe.

Quick and Easy: Even though it is messy to eat, it is incredibly easy to make! It is made in a single skillet with minimal cleanup. Other than dicing an onion, there isn’t a lot of prep work, and you can even use frozen diced onions to save even more time. So you can easily have a delicious dinner ready in 30 minutes that the whole family will love!

Kid Friendly: This was always my favorite dinner when I was a kid. And not just my favorite. But also the favorite of all my friends, cousins, and neighbors. Every time we’d get together my mom would make this for our dinner. And now it is a favorite of my kids as well.

Simple for Teaching: Not only do kids love to eat chicken gumbo sloppy joes, but they are so simple to make that it is an ideal recipe for teaching kids to cook! Once we mastered making French toast, these sloppy joes were the next recipe my mom used to teach us to cook.

Great for Camping: Because you can make this ahead, it has been an idea meal we take camping every year. We simply freeze it, and then let it thaw just before our dinner. Then all you have to do is heat and serve!

Feeding a Crowd: You can easily double, triple, or even quadruple this recipe to feed a crowd. Make it on a large scale! It has never failed to please a crowd. It is great for game day, tailgating, Summer BBQ’s, potluck dinners, family reunions, social events, baby showers, and more!

Easy Freezer Meal: After you allow it to thoroughly cool, you can freeze this gumbo sloppy joe mixture for a quick and easy freezer meal down the road!

🍗 Why Put Chicken Gumbo Soup in Sloppy Joes?

If you grew up with the classic sloppy joe, you might be scratching your head when you see that this recipe calls for chicken gumbo soup. No this is not the traditional sloppy joe. This is Southern GUMBO sloppy joes!

The idea is that chicken gumbo sloppy joes date back to about the 1950s. I haven’t been able to find very many details about the origins. It gets pretty murky and there isn’t a lot known about the origins. But as far as I have been able to tell, it originated from a very basic version that Campbells Soup released on the back of their chicken gumbo soup cans, and then again later in the 1970’s in a cookbook they released. 

The original recipe contained only hamburger, chicken gumbo soup, onion, and mustard. 

As with all recipes, brilliant home chefs through the years have expanded on this basic recipe to make something truly magical! This is why now there are so many different recipe variations for chicken gumbo sloppy joes. 

My recipe is passed down from my mother and has been tried and tested for over 50 years in the kitchen of over 20 relatives and has been the star of hundreds of potlucks, camping dinners, summer BBQ’s, and freezer meals. It has the foundations of a traditional sloppy joe with tomato paste, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. But added a bit of southern zesty tang with the addition of the chicken gumbo soup and white vinegar. 

It is the perfect combination of sweet and zesty between traditional midwestern joes married to southern gumbo. And it is the king of the potluck scene! 

Ingredients:

• Ground Hamburger
• Onion
• Tomato paste
• Brown sugar
• Chicken Gumbo Soup
• Mustard
• Worcestershire sauce
• White Vinegar
• Sea Salt
• Black Pepper

Heat and Brown: In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the ground beef and diced onion and cook breaking the meat apart with a meat chopper or wooden spoon, until the meat and onions are browned.

Combine: Stir in the tomato paste, brown sugar, chicken gumbo soup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, white vinegar, salt and pepper.

Simmer: Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened and flavors have blended, about 15-20 minutes.

Serve: Serve warm on a toasted bun.

SLOPPY JOE VARIATIONS:

Make it Spicy: If you like your sloppy joes spicy you can add in some red pepper flakes, chili powder, a few splashes of your favorite hot sauce, or even fresh diced jalapenos! If you are really adventurous you can even try chopped habanera peppers.

Add Some Cheese: One of my husband’s favorite additions is adding freshly shredded cheese! He loves using cheddar cheese, Monterey jack, Colby jack, or pepper jack.

More Veggies: if you want more of a crunch to your texture you can add other veggies to the mixture at the same time as the gumbo soup. Popular choices include diced celery, green bell peppers, red bell peppers, and shredded carrots.

👩🏻‍🍳 Serve up Chicken Gumbo Sloppy Joes

There are so many different ways to enjoy sloppy joes. Here are a few more ideas of how you can serve up your chicken gumbo sloppy joes:

• Classic: Serve with toasted hamburger buns for the traditional sloppy joe experience.
• Southern Cornbread: Serve next to or on top of a piece of southern cornbread., just like you would a traditional chili.
• Grilled Cheese: Incorporate the meat mixture into a grilled cheese sandwich for a satisfying twist.
• Southern Nachos: Make nachos with tortilla chips as the base, spread the mixture in place of ground hamburger, and top with cheese, fresh jalapenos, salsa fresca, and sour cream.
• Pizza: Use homemade pizza dough as a base and add cheese and sloppy joe filling for a unique sloppy joe pizza.
• Loaded fries: Enhance your fries by topping them with cheese and sloppy joe filling for an irresistible treat.
• Chili dogs: Elevate your hot dogs by adding the meat sauce as a flavorful topping.
• Baked potato: Transform a loaded baked potato by adding this savory meat sauce as a topping.
• Hamburger Topping: Take your hamburger to the next level and use your sloppy joe mixture as a topping at your next BBQ!
• Stuffed Croissants: Use your sloppy joe mixture as a filling! Place a small spoonful of the mixture in the center of the croissant dough and then roll it up and bake!

🫙Storage Suggestions

• Refrigerating – Let the sloppy joe mixture cool to room temperature then cover in an air-tight container and refrigerate for up to 5 days in an airtight container.
• Freezing – Once the sloppy joe mixture is completely cool, place it into a freezer-safe container or freezer bag and freeze for up to 2-3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight.
• Reheating – A good rule of thumb is that it’s best to reheat a recipe the same way it was cooked.
  • For the best results and taste Heat the sloppy joe mixture in a pan on the stovetop over medium heat. Add a little water to prevent sticking and help loosen the mixture. Stir occasionally until heated through. This method takes a bit more time but will give you results closest to freshly made sloppy joes.
  • If you’re short on time: Add the sloppy joe mixture to a microwave-safe bowl with a splash of water. Microwave on medium power until heated through, stirring once or twice during heating. This method is quicker but may not preserve the texture and flavor as well as the stovetop method.

🍔 Love Ground Beef Recipes? Try These!

• Hearty Hamburger Soup
• Old Fashioned Goulash
• Hobo Dinner Tin Foil Packets
• Dirty Mexican Rice
• Hidden Vegetable stuffed hamburgers