Chef John's Turkey Sloppy Joes

The formula

Every ingredient resolved to grams, expressed against the recipe's own base — next to the median of all 151.

	this recipe	typical
liquid	57%	0%
fat	5%	1%
aromatics	33%	22%
sweetener	36%	23%
vegetables and beans	0%	34%
collagen idx	0.8	0.8
marbling idx	0.6	0.6

Adapts cleanly: egg-free, nut-free (documented swaps, applied on the dish page)

Ingredients

Weights computed by us.

28 g	2 tablespoons butter
150 g	1 onion, diced
	salt and ground black pepper to taste
567 g	1.25 pounds ground turkey
118 g	0.5 cup cold water
204 g	0.75 cup ketchup
20 g	1.5 tablespoons brown sugar
1 g	0.5 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
3 g	0.5 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 g	0.5 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
237 g	1 cup water, or as needed
312 g	6 hamburger buns, split
56 g	0.5 cup shredded white Cheddar cheese
53 g	0.33333334326744 cup chopped green onions

Method: 6 steps, published by www.allrecipes.com — open the original ↗ or use bake mode for a follow-along with a screen that stays on.

“This sloppy joe recipe is yummy and everyone that I have served it to, enjoyed it too, and requested the recipe. The only changes I made were: I chopped and sauted some of the little (red, orange, yellow) sweet peppers with the onions, and I added some garlic ” — a cook, 5★

“I will definitely make this again. I was searching for a day before grocery shopping lunch idea and came across this. I had to make a couple of changes due to lack of ingredients. I had to omit the green onions but will make sure I have them on hand for next t” — a cook, 5★