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Mom’s Easy Sloppy Joes

This Sloppy Joes recipe has been handed down to me from my mother. Super easy and always a crowd-pleaser.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 9 ingredients
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Mom’s Easy Sloppy Joes

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,099 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mom’s Easy Sloppy Joes

Serves 6
Prep5 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple cider vinegar, sauce, mustard, sugar, ketchup):

  1. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple cider vinegar, sauce, mustard, sugar, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).