Do you ever get hungry for sloppy joes? I do for some reason; I don’t know if it’s because of my childhood or what but they are almost a comfort food for me and being vegetarian, I have gotten very creative and sometimes those recipes are best not repeating but this time I think I came up with a winner and wanted to share it. I am trying to not use as much soy or processed foods since my cancer diagnoses and yes tempeh is cooked fermented soybeans, but I found out that in small amounts it is safe for me to still have some soybeans. Infact the benefits outweigh the risk, or so I was told.
Some of those benefits are stabilizing blood sugar, lowers cholesterol, helps with bone health, improves digestion and one I am really happy about is it has been shown to help with menopause and all those fun symptoms! So, for me it’s a great food to substitute meat with. Tempeh comes in a thin block so you can slice it for strips to be used in place of steak, bacon, lunch meat. Sometimes cutting it into bite size pieces for a nice stir-fry or it’s great to crumble like I did for today’s recipe. I even decided for the sloppy joes I would do a copycat from Manwich for the sauce.
Tempeh Sloppy Joes:
Serving size 4 Total cooking time 30 minutes
1 8-ounce package of plain Tempeh
1 small green bell pepper diced.
1 small white Onion diced.
3-4 cloves of garlic diced.
1 8 ounce can of tomato sauce
1/2 Cup of no sugar Ketchup
1 1-2 Teaspoon of Mustard
1 Teaspoon of Redwine vinegar
1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
1 Teaspoon of vegetarian Boullioun
Chili powder, Onion & Garlic powder, Black pepper, Paprika per taste or about 1 teaspoon each
1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
Remove tempeh from package then cut into cubes, this will make it easier to crumble it into the skillet.
In a skillet over medium/high heat add olive oil, tempeh, onion, garlic, bell pepper. Sauté until bell pepper is tender and onions are translucent. Turn heat to low then add remaining ingredients, stir and let simmer on low for about 20 minutes.
Serve with homemade sweet potato fries and enjoy.
Sweet Potato fries:
1-2 sweet potatoes
olive oil
Sea salt or Pink Himalayan Salt
Wash, peel (if desired) sweet potatoes then slice them to the desired size. Place sliced sweet potatoes on a large baking sheet that is lined with parchment paper. Lightly brush sweet potato slices with olive oil then sprinkle with salt and back at 450 for about 20 minutes but cooking time varies per size of slices.