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In my experience, fermented food is one aspect of Traditional Diets that is difficult to consistently incorporate into family meals with young children in the home.
Fermented beverages like kombucha aren’t too difficult as they are typically tasty, fizzy and delightful.
Probiotic rich, digestion soothing fermented foods, on the other hand, are a completely different animal for children to accept.  The inherently sour and sometimes tart flavors seem to overwhelm their young taste buds and turn them off even in the small, condimental amounts used by Ancestral Societies.
I’ve had better luck over the years getting creative when a brickwall is firmly erected rather than trying to force the issue.
Homemade Sloppy Joe with Probiotic Rich Sauce
There is no doubt that a tasty sloppy joe sandwich is one of the most beloved of all time for children.  In our home, I make it with grassfed beef and lacto-fermented ketchup to sneak it into the children’s dinner in an enjoyable way that they don’t mind at all.
The trick to this particular sloppy joes recipe is to add homemade fermented ketchup so that the probiotic rich sauce isn’t actually cooked and therefore retains all the beneficial probiotics and enzymes once served at the dinner table.
Try this homemade sloppy joe recipe if you’ve been encountering obstacles introducing digestion enhancing fermented foods to your family. This is one dish they won’t complain about at all!
Traditional Sloppy Joe Recipe (bun optional)
This traditional sloppy joe recipe using an easily made enzyme rich fermented sauce is a tasty and easy way to get probiotics into your family at the dinner table. Use with or without buns as desired.
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef preferably grassfed
- 1 small onion preferably organic
- 1 clove garlic preferably organic
- 2 Tbl butter preferably grassfed
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 - 1 cup ketchup preferably homemade or organic
- 1/2 cup frozen peas optional, preferably organic
- 1/4 cup raisins optional, preferably organic
- organic hamburger buns optional
Instructions
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Melt butter in frying pan on medium-high heat. Add onion finely chopped and cook until it begins to caramelize (5-10 mins).
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Mix in crushed garlic, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly - stir intermittently for 3 minutes to ensure garlic is cooked but not burned.
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Add ground beef mixing in as you go to be sure it doesn’t clump in the heat. Stir continuously for 5 minutes to ensure meat mixes evenly with onion and garlic and begins to simmer uniformly across the whole pan.
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Add optional peas and reduce heat to medium-low for 5 minutes to finish cooking all meat.
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Remove the pan from the heat and let sit for a few minutes to cool slightly. Check with a digital food thermometer to ensure temperature is at or below 117 F/ 47 C before adding fermented ketchup.
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Stir in ketchup (and raisins if desired) and mix thoroughly. Make sure the pan is off the heat - allow to sit for 5 minutes more while still warm but not hot to mix the flavors.
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Serve the sloppy joes immediately over cauliflower rice, sprouted or sourdough buns or alone as desired. Refrigerate leftover sloppy joes after a complete cooldown.
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Refrigerate leftovers after a complete cooldown. Reheat gently not exceeding 117 F/ 47 C to preserve enzymes and probiotics in fermented ketchup.
If you’ve tried this recipe using a fermented sloppy joe sauce already, what did you think? Â Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
We eat something similar to this all the time on GAPS. Never thought of adding lacto-fermented ketchup. Great idea!
Obviously without the bun… we call it noodle-less spaghetti =P
You might want to try shirataki noodles too.
Sure, we eat it sometimes with no bun too. You can also mix in some brown rice pasta … keep that in mind after you start reintroducing grains after you’ve healed your gut on GAPS. Brown rice is the first grain to introduce.
Hey Sarah,
I have 6 children. The last 3 of which were raised eating plain yogurts, kraut juice and such from a very young age (first foods sorta thing) and they all LOVE fermented veggies; especially my youngest. Pickled beets are her absolute favorite. So if you start a baby on sour things they are more likely to not just tolerate, but LOVE fermented veggies. Beets are a very easy intro since they are naturally sweet. All of my kids like fermented veggies though.
My husband and I just sit amazed sometimes at the things they will eat. When my mother came to visit (who has a strong sweet tooth) she kept mentioning how everything we ate was so sour (our salad dressing, our smoothies – so I added stevia to her portion). I just laughed. None of us even consider the sourness. Funny how our taste buds can change.
My five children (presently 3 yrs to 10 yrs) also love fermented veggies so much that I usually cannot keep a jar of anything from being consumed the moment it is out of the fridge and placed on the table- sliced broccoli stems, yellow and green string beans, sauerkraut, pickling cukes, beets, zucchini, etc…. They love it all. They also love to drink the brine, and I give brine whenever they seem like they are not as well as usual. Of course they also love kombucha. I have also lacto-fermented beef and eggs, and ketchup and salsa, which are beloved as well. Our first fermentation was sauerkraut- 7 years ago- and they all loved it right away, and whenever I have added something new, they have loved that as well. It is, from my experience, not a given that young children do not enjoy lacto-fermented foods. =)
Dear Sarah,
Could you please recommend a brand of sourdough buns? I use buns from Berlin Natural Bakery but they are not sourdough…
Thanks!!
Great idea! Something I also do to add to the benefit, is add a bit of liver to all ground beef recipes. The kids don’t even notice the flavor and I feel better that they have some organ meat in their diet.
You did an article on how to soak cornmeal in dolomite. You mentioned a follow up on doing your corn bread recipe. I am unsure what to do with the soaked cornmeal once it is wet. I really would love to see how you make cornbread.
Thanks,
Kim.
Glad you mentioned this. I’ve been wanting this recipe too! I just bought some corn to grind, but now I don’t know what to do with it! 🙂
Sorry I should have done that below the soaked corn article. Seeing this new recipe reminded me of how I am trying to wait patiently for this also.
Kim.
I bet you could ground liver into this! Make it even more nutritious 🙂
Ha, no, I have no problem. My kid inhales sauerkraut. She eats anything. She won’t drink raw cow milk though because “i dont like cow milk, it’s spicy!” okay?
Funny how I don’t have kids but love these posts to get my husband to eat, lol.