Lacto-Fermented Sloppy Joes Recipe

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 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.

There is no doubt that a tasty sloppy joes recipe 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 the lacto-fermented ketchup at the end (click here for an easy video how-to or click here for the written recipe) 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 sloppy joes 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!

Lacto-Fermented Sloppy Joes Recipe

Ingredients

1lb grassfed ground beef
1 small organic onion
1 clove organic garlic
2 Tbl butter from grassfed cows (where to find)
½ teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
½ -1 cup lacto-fermented ketchup (use a full cup if you want soupier sloppy joes)
½ cup organic peas (optional)
¼ cup organic raisins (optional)
Sprouted or sourdough hamburger buns, optional (where to find)

Instructions

Melt butter in frying pan on medium-high heat.  Add onion finely chopped and cook until it begins to caramelize (5-10 mins).

Add crushed garlic, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly – stir intermittently for 3 minutes to ensure garlic is cooked but not burned.

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.

Add optional peas and reduce heat to medium-low for 5 minutes to finish cooking all meat.

Remove the pan from the heat and let sit for a few minutes to cool slightly.

Stir in lacto-fermented 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.

Serve the sloppy joes immediately over sprouted or sourdough buns or alone as desired.  Refrigerate leftover sloppy joes after a complete cooldown.

If you’ve tried this sloppy joes recipe already, what did you think?  Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

Picture Credit

Sarah

The Healthy Home Economist holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Mother to 3 healthy children, blogger, and best-selling author, she writes about the practical application of Traditional Diet and evidence-based wellness within the modern household. Her work has been featured by USA Today, The New York Times, ABC, NBC, and many others.