Recipe Challenge: Vegan Sloppy Joe’s

It’s Friday which means it’s time for week #2 of the Recipe Challenge Laura and I created for ourselves!

In case you missed our first Recipe Challenge last week, you can check it out here. I loved those sweet potato, black bean and quinoa burgers. I had frozen a few of the burger patties from that recipe so I had one again earlier this week for dinner. It reheated really well and provided me with dinner in a pinch.

Before getting to this week’s recipe challenge, Lisa mentioned that she tried making the sweet potato, black bean and quinoa burgers and although she liked them, she said they took a really long time to make. Most likely the issue with making the burgers quickly revolves around baking the sweet potatoes required in the recipe. If you don’t have a chance to bake your sweet potatoes in advance, one trick I learned to quickly baking a sweet potato (or any potato) is to microwave it a bit first while preheating your oven to 450 degrees. I usually set the microwave to the potato setting and then when it beeps that there are only a few minutes remaining to cook, I take it out and switch the potato over to the oven.

It definitely reduces your baking time and still comes out tasting delicious!

This week’s recipe:

Laura suggested we try making this Double Bean Burger recipe from one of my top favorite blogs, How Sweet Eats. Of course I agreed since Jessica of How Sweet Eats is not only an amazing recipe creator but also one of most favorite bloggers (I love her recipes, pictures and especially her personality – she loves Lisa Frank as much as I do).

Only problem, the double bean burger recipe failed me. The burgers did not hold up at all in the pan and looked like mushed splattered cookie dough. I don’t know what I did wrong as I actually followed the directions, using the panko crumbs as the recipe required.

Laura on the other hand, had a wonderful experience with the recipe (read her review here) so this just goes to show you that sometimes recipes will work wonders for one person and not so much for the other!

While I didn’t retry that burger recipe, I did want to try something new for this week so I quickly switched gears to make these Anything Goes Vegan Sloppy Joe’s from Connoisseurus Veg.

This recipe worked PERFECTLY as a quick recipe substitute as I had basically all ingredients on hand.

The anything goes part of the vegan sloppy joe’s recipe title is key here because it allows you to work with any type of lentil/bean you have in the house rather than stick to a strict ingredient list. I don’t like strict recipes!

Here’s a snapshot of the ingredient list from Connoisseurus Veg’s pin to the recipe on Pinterest. It’s a pretty basic ingredients list which is another requirement for me if I am going to be cooking.

Preparation:

The vegan sloppy joe’s recipe is super easy to make and comes together really quickly. It’ a perfect weeknight meal when you are starving and have zero patience (um, that’s me every single night regardless of the day of the week) and can also be prepped in advance to reheat at a later time.

I didn’t have any carrots left in the house so I left them out of the recipe. I cut down the serving size by using only one can of chick peas and one red pepper but next time I make this recipe, I think I would want to make it in a bulk amount so that I have even more leftover to freeze! That’s how much I liked it.

Taste:

Loved it! It’s a nice light meal but rich in flavor and texture, leaving you satisfied but not overstuffed. I served it on a toasted Ezekiel roll because those are my favorite at the moment. The vegan sloppy joe’s mixture though would be perfect over a baked potato and roasted vegetables which is my next plan for this dish.

I loved the red pepper in this dish. I always liked red peppers but rarely remember to buy them in the store but that will now change. So much flavor! Next time I would like to try making the vegan sloppy joe’s with lentils or even a mix of lentils with chick peas and possibly through in some quinoa too.

Gosh, I love that I am playing around in the kitchen again. I am excited to plan next week’s recipe which I will talk to Laura about later today. Have a great weekend!

Have you had a recent recipe fail without knowing what went wrong?

Do you like sloppy joe’s? How do you normally serve them?

What are you doing this weekend?!