Sloppy Joe Sliders
Buy our air fryer e-cookbooks today Get ready for finger licking good sloppy joe sliders! After making a batch of these homemade pull apart sloppy joes with sweet Hawaiian rolls, we’re obsessed. They’re the perfect slider appetizers and they truly are tender and melt in your mouth. Please make these, we know you’ll love them.
Homemade Sloppy Joe Mix
Years ago we made our popular sloppy joe recipe from scratch and it’s been our go-to homemade sloppy joes mix. We’ve made sloppy joe pasta and even an Instant Pot Sloppy Joe recipe. Now we’re sharing these crazy good pull apart sloppy joe sliders that’s loaded with juicy mix and lots of cheese. It’s the perfect family meal that’s fun for the kids and great for game day or weekend parties.
Video: Sloppy Joe Sliders Recipe {Messy but Tasty}
Sloppy Joe Sliders Recipe Pull Apart
To feed a crowd for weekend parties or a hungry family with kids, it’s so great to make these as pull apart sliders. Buying a pack of multiple slider rolls means you can feed a group with less work. What makes these extra yummy is if you want to add some extra cheese for more of the “pull-apart” wow cheese factor.
Type of ground meat to use for sloppy joes?
Traditionally ground beef is always used for sloppy joes. But if you want other options, these different ground meat ideas are great too. What makes the meat mix so flavorful is our combination of spices. Savory, slightly sweet and tangy flavors is what we incorporate into our meat mixture.
- Ground beef: we usually prefer a slightly lean meat, 85-90% lean. It will make the sloppy joes a bit less greasy and runny. Bur feel free to use whatever you prefer. You can always also skim off the extra fat when it cooks.
- Ground pork: if you’re a fan of ground pork, this gives a great rich flavor to the sloppy joe mix.
- Healthier version: use ground chicken or ground turkey. They’re less fatty and less calories.
- Plant based beyond meat or impossible meat are good options for vegan or plant based sloppy joes. Give it a try if anyone in your family or friends are vegans. If you are making a vegan version, make sure to also use vegan rolls, vegan cheese (or eliminate the cheese), and vegan Worcestershire sauce (or use soy sauce).
Tips for Making Sloppy Joe Sliders
- Choose a great quality slider bun. Most popular buns are the sweet hawaiian rolls, but there’s different slider buns out on the market too. We like the soft and tender slider style rolls because when combined with the sloppy joe meat, the results are a tender and melt in your mouth slider.
- Dinner rolls are great too, especially if they’re the softer kind. Just slice each one individually and lay them really close, side-by-side so that they’re touching. That way there’s less meat that falls through between the rolls.
- Choose a great melting cheese like american cheese, cheddar or swiss.
- If you like a lot of meat in your sliders, you can double the amount of meat mix.
- All sloppy joe sliders recipe details are in the recipe box below.
Sloppy Joe Sliders
Ingredients
For the Sloppy Joe Mix
- 1 pound (454 g) ground beef (preferably a leaner meat, 85-90% lean)
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) olive oil
- 1/2 medium yellow onion , diced
- 1/2 cup (120 g) ketchup , *see head note
- 1/4 cup (60 g) tomato sauce
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) mustard
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) chili powder
- salt , to taste
- black pepper , to taste
For the Sliders:
- 12 pack Hawaiian slider rolls (or other preferred slider/dinner rolls)
- 10 slices American cheese or 1 cup shredded cheese
- Sliced pickles (optional)
- 1/4 red onion , sliced (optional)
- crispy onions (optional)
- 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) butter , melted
Instructions
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil then add the onions. Sauté onions until soft and fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Stir in beef and cook beef mixture for about 3 minutes, or until lightly browned. As it cooks, break up the meat into smaller pieces. If you like it chunkier, don’t break up the beef too much.
- Stir in the ketchup, tomato sauce, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and chili powder. Mix until evenly combined. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Continue to cook at a simmer for about 10 minutes. If your beef is on the fattier side, skim off some of the excess fat.
- Allow to cool slightly before making sliders. It will help firm up the sloppy Joe mix a little.
- Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C.
- Slice the slider rolls in half and place the bottom half on a baking sheet tray.
- Place a layer of cheese the add any optional toppings you like (pickles &/or red onion, crispy onions, etc). Top with the sloppy Joe mix.
- Optional – Add another layer of cheese if you like them extra cheesy.
- Put the top of the rolls back on, over the meat. Brush with melted butter.
- Bake at 350°F/175°C for about 10 minutes or until tops are toasted and cheese is melted.
- Separate into individual sliders and serve.
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
Add more slider toppings
You can keep the pull part sloppy joes sliders simple with just the meat and the cheese. But if you’re wanting to take them up to another level of deliciousness, here’s some extra add-on toppings to consider.
- Pickles: both sweet and dill slices work! You can even squeeze some relish on top.
- Slices of red onion or white onion. If you have time to make some pickled red onions, this would add a great pop of flavor too.
- Shredded lettuce or slices of tomato.
Make Ahead Pull Apart Sloppy Joes Tips
You can prep this ahead of time by making the sloppy joe meat mix the day ahead. This will make the assembly so much quicker, especially if you plan on serving these for a party. Or if you need to have a quick family dinner for the kids, then having the meat mix prepared ahead of time makes putting dinner on the table that much quicker. Also BTW, the meat mix is so good, you might want to make a double batch of it. It’s so easy to eat a spoonful of the sloppy joes mix during cooking, which leaves you less to stuff the sliders with. So trust us, you might need to make a double batch.
- You can even have the slider rolls pre-sliced and wrapped on the prepared sheet tray.
- Have the cheese ready to put into the slider buns.
- Prep any toppings you want the day ahead
Freezing leftovers
It’s hard to have leftovers because these sliders are so good. But if you do, try to eat them within 1-2 days. After that if you still have leftovers, then you can freeze them. Before serving, just take them out of the freezer the day ahead to thaw all the way through. Then microwave the sloppy joe sliders for about 1 minute until heated through.
Easy pull apart slider recipes:
- Pull apart bbq chicken sliders
- Thanksgiving leftovers pull apart sliders: great way to use up all those Thanksgiving leftovers!
- here’s more slider recipe inspiration for you.
1 Comment on “Sloppy Joe Sliders”
I’m making this for my Super Bowl party. It’s so perfect.