1 bottle WATC original or spicy BBQ sauce (350 ml)
3 cups dried macaroni, cooked al dente
1 cup pasta water
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella
To serve:
chopped green onion or parsley
Takes ,
serves 8.
Instructions
Prepare Sloppy Joe filling: Place a pot or skillet on moderate heat. Add beef, stirring it in the pan vigorously to crumble while it cooks.
Once beef is cooked, drain away any excess fat. Stir in onion and garlic. Cook for 2 - 3 minutes to soften.
Season with WATC Butcher’s Blend, stir until beef goes dry, about 1 minute more.
Add BBQ sauce. Stir then reduce temperature to simmer. or just set to side.
Cook pasta to package directions, and before straining, reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
To assemble: Spill macaroni into large bowl. Add Sloppy Joe mix plus 1 cup of cheddar and 1 cup mozzarella. Stir to melt cheese a bit, then add 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Stir to combine, adding more pasta water until sauce achieves desired consistency. Spill mix into cast-iron skillet or oven-safe casserole dish or crock. Smooth into even layer and sprinkle top with remaining cheese.
Transfer to oven, baking for 15 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is melted. If baking from cold, bake for 30 minutes.
To serve, spoon dollops onto plates and finish with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley.
Sloppy Joe Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 tablespoons Butcher’s Blend spice mix
1 bottle WATC original or spicy BBQ sauce (350 ml)
3 cups dried macaroni, cooked al dente
1 cup pasta water
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella
To serve:
chopped green onion or parsley
Directions
Prepare Sloppy Joe filling: Place a pot or skillet on moderate heat. Add beef, stirring it in the pan vigorously to crumble while it cooks.
Once beef is cooked, drain away any excess fat. Stir in onion and garlic. Cook for 2 - 3 minutes to soften.
Season with WATC Butcher’s Blend, stir until beef goes dry, about 1 minute more.
Add BBQ sauce. Stir then reduce temperature to simmer. or just set to side.
Cook pasta to package directions, and before straining, reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
To assemble: Spill macaroni into large bowl. Add Sloppy Joe mix plus 1 cup of cheddar and 1 cup mozzarella. Stir to melt cheese a bit, then add 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Stir to combine, adding more pasta water until sauce achieves desired consistency. Spill mix into cast-iron skillet or oven-safe casserole dish or crock. Smooth into even layer and sprinkle top with remaining cheese.
Transfer to oven, baking for 15 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is melted. If baking from cold, bake for 30 minutes.
To serve, spoon dollops onto plates and finish with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley.
Sloppy Joe Mac and Cheese
5 / 5. 2
Tangy, BBQ-flavoured Sloppy Joe filling stirred up with macaroni, cheddar, mozzarella cheese, tranformed into an oven-baked casserole…
Here’s the recipe mashup we’ve all been waiting for. Let’s make SLOPPY JOE MAC AND CHEESE!
This incredible recipe mash-up has all the feels, which is unsurprising. After all, who doesn’t love a tasty Sloppy Joe recipe or an extra cheesy macaroni and cheese? Now, before we show you how this brilliant pairing becomes one delicious meal idea, here are the highlights:
We stir the pasta and Sloppy Joe mix together with both mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.
The mixture gets transferred to a casserole dish and oven baked.
One additional bonus feature of this easy recipe: you can make the dish in advance. Assemble, then simply cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to bake and serve. Yes! A make-ahead meal idea that also travels well. Just stick it in a cooler, head up to the cottage or weekend getaway, bake it and serve.
You ready for SLOPPY JOE MAC AND CHEESE? We thought so. Let’s go!
INGREDIENTS
We’ll start with the lightbulb moment for this recipe, which you hopefully experienced when you first saw the photo of the ingredients.“That’s it!?” Yep. The goal for this recipe was to craft something that’s exceedingly delicious without needing a slew of ingredients. So add ground beef, an onion, a head of garlic, macaroni, cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese to your shopping list. After that, all you’ll need is a bottle of our famous ORIGINAL BBQ SAUCE plus two tablespoons of our fabulously flavourful BUTCHER’S BLEND SPICE BLEND. More about that in a bit.
Couple of things about those ingredients, specifically the meat used to make Sloppy Joes. First, please feel free to use your favourite ground beef whether it’s extra-lean ground beef, lean ground beef or a medium grind. Just remember our instruction to drain away excess fat from the cooked beef, keeping that layer of excess fat off the cooked dish. Second, we encourage you to make this recipe your own, so feel free to make the Sloppy Joe mix using ground pork, ground chicken and even ground veal if you’d like – up to you. Finally, and this goes for the meat, veggies and cheeses, try to use organic ingredients whenever possible. You will taste the difference.
BBQ SAUCE AND SEASONING
In case you missed the memo, we have crafted and are now selling some seriously delicious Weekend at the Cottage products. It all started with our ORIGINAL BBQ SAUCE, tangy with a hint of sweetness and just the right amount of heat. Then we introduced a SPICY BBQ SAUCE, spicier with a titch of brown sugar and a pleasing kick of heat. Next, we came out with five SPICE BLENDS, RUBS AND A DIP. Click those links to learn more and to purchase.
For this recipe we used our BUTCHER’S BLEND to give the Sloppy Joe meat hints of paprika, black pepper, chili powder, garlic, coriander, oregano, sage and few more essential herbs. Using our ORIGINAL or SPICY BBQ sauce and seasoning for this recipe helps keep the process easy. You’ll need one cup of sauce and two tablespoons of the spice blend for the recipe. Go HERE to order on AMAZON.CA.
HOW TO MAKE SLOPPY JOES
Making a homemade Sloppy Joe recipe is super easy and always well received. It’s one of those comfort foods of which people just can’t get enough. When we marry it with mac and cheese, look out. If your tastes run to a classic SLOPPY JOE, click THIS LINK and make our fully homemade RECIPE. It takes more time and more ingredients like ketchup, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and dried seasonings. This easier version starts in the same way where we take a pound of ground beef and sauté it over medium heat or medium-high heat. The trick here is to stir the meat vigorously using a wooden spoon as it cooks. This ensures it breaks down into tiny bits once cooked.
Once the meat is cooked and you’ve strained away the excess grease or fat, next step is to add finely diced onion, garlic and two tablespoons of the BUTCHER’S BLEND. Giving those ingredients some time to cook helps the vegetable soften while also allowing the flavours to meld. Last step is to stir in a cup of our BBQ SAUCE and then, guess what? Sloppy Joe mix is done! The use of BBQ SAUCE eliminates the need for tomato sauce.
MACARONI
Making the macaroni for this recipe is also easy. Here’s our foolproof directions on how to properly cook pasta. First bring 6 quarts of water plus 1½ tablespoons of kosher salt to a boil in a large pot. This quantity works for every 3 cups of pasta to be cooked. For best results on cook time, simply follow the instructions on the package. We used classic macaroni, AKA elbow macaroni, for this recipe, but if you’re in a pinch and need to use a type of pasta already in your pantry, it will work fine. Yes, this recipe can be made with penne, fusilli, rigatoni and then even long noodles like spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine and tagliatelle. This recipe is very versatile. Pro tip: don’t forget to reserve a cup of the pasta water before you drain the macaroni. You’ll need it when you stir up the dish before baking.
WHAT’S THE BEST CHEESE FOR MACARONI AND CHEESE?
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we never met a cheese we didn’t like. In this SLOPPY JOE MAC AND CHEESE we used grated mozzarella cheese plus a grated sharp cheddar cheese. Similar to our recommendation about using a favourite ground meat or pasta in this recipe, do the same with cheese. Looking for something with a bit of nuttiness and lots of stringiness? Use Gruyère or Swiss cheese. Let’s say you enjoy a mild-flavoured cheese, make it using goat’s cheese or gouda.
EASY SLOPPY JOE MACARONI AND CHEESE
We’ve mentioned how easy this recipe is a number of times, there’s so little prep time. There’s one final step before baking this meat and pasta casserole, and that’s to toss everything together in a large mixing bowl. So first thing is to pour the strained pasta into the bowl. Then add the entire pot of Sloppy Joe meat. Next we add in a cup of each grated cheese and stir everything together. Because the macaroni and meat mixture are both hot, the cheese will already start to melt. Remember the cup of reserved pasta water?
If you’d like a dish that’s a bit saucier, add some of that water here, stirring to combine. Do this until you achieve your desired consistency. Final step is to transfer the mixture into a 9 x 13-inch glass casserole or a large cast-iron skillet.
OVEN BAKE
Two things about how to bake a Sloppy Joe macaroni and cheese casserole. Let’s say you’re making this dish as a “make-ahead meal” as we described off the top. Leave it on the counter to cool, then cover with wrap and refrigerate until you’re ready to bake and enjoy. Just don’t forget to add the additional cup of grated cheddar on top before baking. Let’s say everyone’s chompin’ at the bit and you need a delicious meal on the table in short order, simply sprinkle the remaining cheese over the macaroni and meat mixture, then bake as directed.
SERVE
Serving our SLOPPY JOE MAC AND CHEESE need not be complicated. We suggest scooping big spoonfuls onto plates, then garnish with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley and you’re done. For the overachievers out there, sure you can add some freshly grated Parmesan cheese if you’d like a more pronounced cheesy flavour. If you’re thinking a side salad might be nice, go ahead and toss up our CAESAR SALAD, this simple MIXED SALAD or our tasty CREAMY COLESLAW.
THE SPICE IS RIGHT!
Before sending you on your way to make this cheesy, meaty, pasta dish, here are a few more links to our products available in Canada on Amazon.ca!
VEGGIE LOVERS (2-pack) – A packet of our POTATO & VEGGIE SEASONING plus a package of our GARLICKY SUN-DRIED TOMATO DIP; just add mayo and sour cream and you’ve got a delicious topping for tacos or a party dip that works with assorted veggies, tomatoes and bell peppers. Go HERE to order.
MEAT LOVERS (2-pack) – A packet of POULTRY & PORK RUB plus a package of our BUTCHER’S BLEND. Go HERE to order.
WEEKEND ESSENTIALS: The whole shebang, 1 packet of everything! A packet of POULTRY & PORK RUB, BUTCHER’S BLEND, POTATO & VEGGIE SEASONING and a GARLICKY SUN-DRIED TOMATO DIP. Go HERE to order.
PIN IT!
This amazing meal idea is so delicious, we suggest you PIN the recipe to a favourite main course, make ahead or weeknight meal board on PINTEREST or BOOKMARK this tab for easy access. SHARE it with friends so they can make them too. We’d also appreciate seeing pics of all the delicious dishes you’re making these days. Use #weekendatthecottage when you post those pics on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks!
Can’t wait to try our SLOPPY JOE MAC AND CHEESE? What are you waiting for, make it for dinner tonight!
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Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 tablespoons Butcher’s Blend spice mix
1 bottle WATC original or spicy BBQ sauce (350 ml)
3 cups dried macaroni, cooked al dente
1 cup pasta water
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella
To serve:
chopped green onion or parsley
Directions
Prepare Sloppy Joe filling: Place a pot or skillet on moderate heat. Add beef, stirring it in the pan vigorously to crumble while it cooks.
Once beef is cooked, drain away any excess fat. Stir in onion and garlic. Cook for 2 - 3 minutes to soften.
Season with WATC Butcher’s Blend, stir until beef goes dry, about 1 minute more.
Add BBQ sauce. Stir then reduce temperature to simmer. or just set to side.
Cook pasta to package directions, and before straining, reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
To assemble: Spill macaroni into large bowl. Add Sloppy Joe mix plus 1 cup of cheddar and 1 cup mozzarella. Stir to melt cheese a bit, then add 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Stir to combine, adding more pasta water until sauce achieves desired consistency. Spill mix into cast-iron skillet or oven-safe casserole dish or crock. Smooth into even layer and sprinkle top with remaining cheese.
Transfer to oven, baking for 15 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is melted. If baking from cold, bake for 30 minutes.
To serve, spoon dollops onto plates and finish with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley.
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