Dutch Oven Sloppy Joes
Ground beef, canned gumbo soup, and mustard, cooked down over coals until it stops running off the bun.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 47
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 30 min
- total time
- 40 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1 lb | 80/20 cooks up better than lean here |
|---|---|---|
| Canned chicken gumbo soup | 1 can (15 oz) | the rice and okra in it do the thickening |
| Onion | 1 medium | chop it at home and bag it |
| Ketchup | 2 tbsp | |
| Yellow mustard | 2 tbsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/4 tsp | |
| Hamburger buns | 8 |
Method
- Build a bed of coals and set a 12-inch dutch oven over about 25 of them, or use a skillet on a grill grate. You want frying heat, roughly 375 degrees.
- Add the beef, onion, and pepper. Chop and stir with the spoon until the meat is broken up fine and no pink is left.
- Pour in the whole can of soup, the ketchup, and the mustard. Stir it together.
- Pull most of the coals out from under the oven, down to eight or ten. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until it thickens and stops sliding around the pot.
- Spoon onto buns. Eat over a plate.
Chicken gumbo soup is the odd ingredient and the load-bearing one. It brings tomato, rice, okra, and salt in one can, and the rice and okra thicken the sauce as it simmers so you are not standing over a pot cooking down water. That is why the mix goes from soupy to spoonable in 15 minutes with nothing added.
This one stays a car-camping recipe. A pound of raw beef needs a cooler, and buns need space, so there is no honest way to make it a pack-in dinner. Heat management is the only skill involved: hot coals to brown the meat, most of them raked away to simmer. Leave it on frying heat the whole time and the bottom scorches before the sauce sets.
Packing
Beef rides frozen in the cooler and thaws on the drive. Onion gets chopped at home into a bag. Soup can, ketchup, and mustard are shelf-stable and can live in the food bin. Buns go on top of everything or they arrive flat.
Variations
- No gumbo soup on the shelf? A can of tomato soup plus a handful of instant rice does most of the same job.
- Add a diced bell pepper with the onion if the cooler has room.
- Double it in the 12-inch oven only if you like stirring. Better to cook two rounds.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/sloppy_joe-2324.asp