No Buns? Make Sloppy Joe Cups

Ingredients: 

Cupcake or muffin tin 

Non-stick cooking spray 

Ground beef 

Sloppy Joe sauce 

Crescent rolls 

Desired toppings, such as cheese or onions

Mm, sloppy Joes for supper tonight. Brown the ground beef and get out the buns. Uh-oh, where are the buns? Did you even get them when you were at the store? Apparently not. Now what? You can't serve sloppy Joes directly on plates. Try to serve it on bread and, well, it's a whole different experience - one that you don't want. So, now what? Is there any substitute for buns? Hey, I have an idea! Make sloppy Joe cups instead of ordinary sloppy Joes. They're neater, don't require buns, and they're so easy to make. If you can bake biscuits, and make your usual sloppy Joe mix, you can make the cups - sometimes called Tidy Josephs. You might not ever buy buns again!

Sloppy Joe cups are so delicious and they offer qualities that regular sloppy Joes don't. They aren't eaten with the hands, so they're not sloppy, and since your family hasn't had them yet, they'll feel like you've gotten a new recipe. No recipe is needed, though. Simply get some crescent rolls and use them to make the cups for the sloppy Joe mix.

Turn a cupcake or muffin tin upside-down and use it to make the cups. Barely spray the tin bottoms with non-stick cooking spray and begin creating the bowls. Take one triangle of the dough and lay the widest part of it over the bottom of one compartment of the muffin tin. If you want, tuck the corner under, or just leave it dangling where it is. Spread or press the bread so that it covers the entire surface. Take another triangle and wrap it around the outside of the compartment. You might need more than one crescent roll; cover the whole outside area of the compartment with the dough.

As the crescent rolls are being readied, start browning the ground beef, and continue with that as you bake the cups. Drain the beef, stir in the Manwich or other sauce, and remove the rolls when they're browned.

Take off each crescent roll cup and lay it on a plate. Fill it with the sloppy Joe mix and then add whatever toppings that you want. You can sprinkle cheese over the cup, add diced onions, or compliment the sloppy Joe cups with other goodies. Make tiny sloppy Joe cups as appetizers, or make larger ones, as meals. They're delicious enough to have your family begging for you to make them again in the future.