Goodbye Buns: The Classic 10-Minute Dinner You Should Be Adding To Baked Potatoes

For as long as they take to finish in the oven, you want to make your baked potatoes the right way, and elevate them beyond their typical side status at the same time. All the expected toppings — butter, sour cream, chives, and bacon — go a long way toward shining up an ordinary spud, but none really turn it into a whole dinner. For more of a meal, look to a quick, classic additional preparation that turns these tubers into a beefy feast: sloppy Joes.

Truly among the least appetizingly titled of all foodstuffs (though the Rochester garbage plate takes the cake) sloppy Joes are indeed sloppy. The sandwich's saucy ground beef is hard to handle, turning you into the eponymous Joe. So why not turn it into a dish you can eat with utensils and cut through the pretense that there's a way to paw a sloppy Joe without sullying your shirt, and your dignity? The potato's sturdy skin and fluffy interior make it even better than buns to accommodate the famously untidy protein.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, making sloppy Joe baked potatoes is straightforward: bake the potatoes, prepare the sloppy Joe filling and combine the two. Use your preferred method for baking potatoes, which probably involves baking at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for around an hour. Your usual ground beef preparation will do, too, as long as you keep your sloppy Joe beef around 85% lean for optimal results.

Once you've spooned the meat onto the split potato, more of those classic or novel toppings can take it over the finish line. Sour cream works well here with its creamy tang, as does hot sauce or red pepper flakes for a nice kick. Sliced pickles can cut a sloppy Joe's richness, and giardiniera, another member of the brined family, can also bring its own botanical freshness, even as its veggies are preserved, providing texture and acidity to contrast to the hearty filling.