Grilled Grownup Sloppy Joes

For Sunday Dinner this week, I tried a recipe from Weber’s Big Book of Grilling, which is one of their older publications. I picked up a copy used for $3 after a friend of mine had posted shots of dry rubbed ribs he’d made using a recipe from the book.

The recipe noted that if you grew up on Sloppy Joes as ground beef and something from a packet, you deserve better.

This was pretty amazing. It called for a (fairly typical) dry rub on a three pound chuck roast, which you then sear for fifteen minutes and cook indirect for an hour or so. The sauce starts with a red bell pepper, a red onion and some garlic. Then you add a little chili powder and flour to make a sort of roux, then add beef stock, canned tomatoes and barbecue sauce. When the roast is done, you carve it into small bits and let it simmer in the sauce for half-an-hour or so.

The result is something with a similar flavor profile to what you may remember from childhood, but much richer and with much more texture. Though it was a fairly labor intensive, it was well worth the effort.

We served this with potato wedges (coated with olive oil and a packet of ranch dressing seasoning, then baked on the grill while the beef was simmering) and a nice green salad.

Lucky for you, if you’d like to try the recipe, it’s online here.