This Recipe for Vegan Sloppy Joes Is Perfect for Tonight’s Dinner

One common concern when trying to feed your family is finding a dish that will satisfy everyone at the table — regardless of their dietary preferences. Personally, I run into this problem a lot; I myself am vegan, but not everyone in my family is. Thankfully for me (and others out there, too), there are plenty of plant-based recipes that are filling and tasty — and this recipe for vegan sloppy Joes from Jessica Seinfeld is one of them.

Stopping by TODAY to talk about holiday cooking, the longtime cookbook author — who recently released her newest offering, Vegan, at Times — gave everyone an instant childhood flashback with this hearty and delicious revamp of an old classic. “This is a home run for people who are worried about walking away from the table unsatisfied,” she raved of the recipe.

So, how hard is it to make, you ask? Well, it’s basically like making a traditional sloppy Joe recipe — minus the meat. For this recipe you’ll substitute a head of cauliflower and some cannellini beans (or chickpeas) for the ground beef. Everything else, however, is what you’d expect from a classic sloppy Joe: onions, garlic, bell peppers, tomato paste, and lots of seasonings. 

During prep, Jessica highly recommends evenly chopping the onions and bell peppers so that they cook evenly for the same amount of time. From there, the recipe speeds up quickly: You cook the cauliflower and beans before combining the vegetables, proteins, and sauces together in a pan to sauté. The recipe takes about 25 minutes from start to finish and will feed four people. 

If you’re vegan-ish like Jessica, you can serve the sloppy Joe mix over the hamburger buns of your choice. For those who want to go plant-based all the way, however, a fluffy vegan bun (from a brand like Dave’s Killer Bread) is a good choice to consider.

You can check out the full recipe here — and if you happen to have a few walnuts handy, our Walnut & Cauliflower Sloppy Joe recipe deserves a try, too.