Venison Sloppy Joe Grilled Cheese
A Grilled Cheese and Sloppy Joe comes together in Holy Matrimony – and is on the table in just 30 minutes.During the busy fall, I'm out of town a whole bunch either hunting or following clients who are hunting. When I am finally home for a few days with the girls, I prefer to make slow cooker meals or simple 30-minute meals like these venison sloppy joes with cheese. If you have some ground venison thawing out in your refrigerator, you are already halfway to dinner. There are a few reasons why ground venison makes such a great dinner staple: we can easily make it ourselves by grinding up the two front quarters of our deer. It's super versatile and can be used in countless different recipes. And it's tasty! But if you've been cooking the same old same old week after week (Hello Venison Chili) it can also get boring.GROUND VENISON RECIPESEnter recipes like this Venison Sloppy Joe Grilled Cheese. From weeknight burgers like my Venison Cheeseburger or my Blue Cheese Venison Burgers to mouthwatering Pappardelle Bolognese with Venison, this website has a huge mix of classic simple ground venison recipes and some innovative ground venison (without pasta) will have your family running, not walking, to the dinner table.There is nothing complicated about a sloppy joe. It has long been a big favorite for family dinners across the country, so it's no surprise that I would be creating a wild game version using ground venison. The messy meat sandwich is a little spicy and a little sweet, and when it gets covered in melted ooey, gooey cheddar cheese and provolone, the only thing you have to worry about is eating too many of them. WHAT IS SLOPPY JOE?The Sloppy Joe is a sandwich made with ground beef and a tomato sauce. Pretty simple, right? But the Sloppy Joe’s history is a little more complicated depending on who you talk to. I prefer the following explanation.Marilyn Brown, Director of the Consumer Test Kitchen at H.K. Heinz in Pittsburgh (the Heinz "Sloppy Joe" not surprisingly, is reddened with ketchup) researched the origin of the sandwich. Brown says their research at the Carnegie Library suggests that the Sloppy Joe began in a Sioux City, Iowa, cafe as a "loose meat sandwich" in 1930, the creation of a cook named Joe…"—The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter: New York] 1997 (p. 349).If you would prefer a "regular" homemade sloppy joe sandwich without cheese, check out my recipe for Venison Sloppy Joes.SLOPPY JOES IN KEY WESTBack in my early 20's, I used to live and work on Captiva Island near Fort Myers, Florida. A group of us from the restaurant loved taking a high-speed catamaran ride to Key West on occasion. One of our favorite spots to eat on Duval Street was Sloppy Joe's. Originally launched under a different name, it was none other than Ernest Hemingway who encouraged rebranding the bar as Sloppy Joe’s. But it had nothing to do with a sandwich. The name was adopted from Jose Garcia Rios’ Havana Club, which sold liquor and iced seafood.“Because the floor was always wet with melted ice, his patrons taunted this Spanish "Joe" with running a “sloppy” place,” said Donna Edwards, Key West's Sloppy Joe’s Brand Manager. “The name stuck.”“A loose beef sandwich was on the menu at the original Sloppy Joe’s in Havana, Cuba confirmed Edwards.The Key West version of Sloppy Joe’s has been serving the sandwich since the beginning, Today, the popular bar and grill sells more than 50,000 Sloppy Joes a year.THE MANWICHManwich, slush burger, yum yums, dynamite, spoonburgers, tavern sandwich; a Sloppy Joe can be called by many other names. The most well-known however is Manwich. Much as I'd like this to constitute a reference to the Sloppy Joe being a man’s favorite sandwich, this nickname derives from a brand of canned Sloppy Joe sauce that was launched by ConAgra Foods and Hunt’s in 1969. I have to confess that I do like the stuff on occasion. I've made many a Mule Deer Manwich in my day using the Manwich "BOLD" Sloppy Joe Sauce in a can. Marketed with the slogan “A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal,” it’s no surprise that this one-pan meal became so popular during the 1970s and 80s, and for many years, Americans made their Sloppy Joes straight out of a can.WILD GAME FOR WEEKNIGHT DINNERSAfter a long day of work, it's not always easy to face your kitchen and whip up dinner. But I hope this recipe and my other venison recipes will give you inspiration and motivation you need to get excited about cooking every night.Grab a stack of napkins. If you make this sloppy joe with cheese, it's about to get sloppy!If you are huge fan of sandwiches like we are, you also might want to try out my Venison Patty Melt and my Venison Cheeseburger Sliders.If you are headed our way for North Dakota deer season, check out the North Dakota Game & Fish Department website. And if you want me to come along with you as your camp cook, photographer, or butcher, you can find out more details here.If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #wildgameandfishDid you enjoy this Venison Sloppy Joe Grilled Cheese Recipe? Be sure to leave a 5-star rating RIGHT HERE!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 pound ground venison
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 8 slices Texas Toast sliced bread
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
Sloppy Joe Mix
- In a large skillet over medium heat, add olive oil. Add onion and sauté, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add minced garlic and sauté with onions another 1 minutes.
- Add ground venison and cook, stirring and breaking up meat with wooden spoon until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add salt, pepper, and paprika and mix well.
- Stir in ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire, brown sugar, and chili powder. Simmer until thick, about 4 minutes. Transfer mixture to a plate and wipe skillet clean.
Assemble sandwiches
- Butter one side of each slice of Texas Toast and pile on 1/4 cup of shredded cheese on the opposite side. Then spoon some of the sloppy joe mixture on top of the cheese. Then top that with another 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese and one more slice bread, buttered-side up.
- Cook over medium heat until bread is golden brown, and cheese is melted, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining ingredients to make 4 sandwiches total.
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