These easy vegan sloppy joes are made with nutritious chickpeas, simmered with carrots and peppers in a spiced tomato-based sauce; and served on a sandwich bun with crunchy cabbage and caramelized onions.
I’m super proud of my vegan chickpea sloppy joes! I don’t have fond memories of the original meat-based version, but I love these messy plant-based sandwiches. They’re easy to make, not too sweet, and made with pantry ingredients!
I decided to pair the chickpea filling with caramelized onions to add another note of sweetness because I keep the filling itself pretty tangy. Topped off with fresh cabbage for crunch, this is the perfect summer sandwich – or any time of year really!
The steps for making these sandwiches are super easy:
Start caramelizing the onions. You could do this blindfolded, but it does take a while to caramelize them properly!
While the onions are cooking, prep the vegetables, chickpeas, and seasonings.
Saute the pepper, garlic and carrot. Brown the veggies a little bit and bloom the ground spices for extra flavor.
Add the chickpeas, ketchup, and other simmering ingredients. For variations, you can also use cooked lentils or another bean, rehydrated TVP, or any cooked vegan “ground meat” substitute in place of the chopped chickpeas. The smaller you chop the chickpeas, the easier it will be to eat your chickpea sloppy joes :).
Simmer to perfection and serve with the works! Scoop your vegan sloppy joe filling onto a bun, topping it with the caramelized onions and some fresh cabbage for texture. I like to spread some cashew mayo on my rolls as well.
For another variation, you can try substituting BBQ sauce for the ketchup. The filling is naturally gluten-free, so just use a gluten-free serving vessel instead of the burger buns, if needed!
These vegan sloppy joes are easy and delicious. I hope you enjoy them, and please leave a comment or tag me on Instagram (@yupitsvegan) if you give them a try! Bon appetit!
Chickpea Sloppy Joes
Ingredients
For the caramelized onions:
- 2 tsp oil of choice
- 2 yellow or white onions thinly sliced
For the vegan sloppy joes filling:
- 2 tsp oil of choice
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 small bell pepper small dice
- 1 carrot small dice
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- 1/8 tsp ground black pepper (plus to taste)
- 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp ketchup
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp hot sauce
- 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas (equal to 1 15 oz. can - rinse and drain), mashed or roughly chopped (I just pulsed them a few times in the blender)
For the chickpea sloppy joes:
- caramelized onions (see above)
- chickpea sloppy joe filling (see above)
- 6 sandwich buns of choice (I used Ezekiel Sprouted Wheat and the filling was enough for my whole pack of 6)
- other toppings of choice (e.g. shredded cabbage or coleslaw; green onions; avocado; lettuce)
Instructions
For the caramelized onions:
- Warm the oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the onions and stir. Spread out the onions evenly so that they are making as much contact with the pan as possible.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook the onions, stirring occasionally, for about 45 minutes or until significantly reduced in size and brown in color. Season to taste with salt.
For the chickpea sloppy joe filling:
- Meanwhile, warm the oil over medium heat in a saucepan. Add the garlic and bell pepper and a pinch of salt, and stir. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the bell pepper has started to release liquid.
- Add the diced carrot and cook for another 3-5 minutes or until the carrot has softened slightly. Add the spices (paprika through pepper), stir, and cook for another 60 seconds, or until fragrant.
- Add the rest of the filling ingredients, plus 2 tbsp of water, and stir. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to medium-low. Gently simmer for about 20 minutes, while stirring occasionally, until the flavors have melded and the carrots are done to your liking.
- Season with additional salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste.
For the chickpea sloppy joes:
- For each person who is eating, toast a sandwich bun. Top with about 1/3 cup of filling (depending on how sloppy you want to be...), caramelized onions, and other toppings of choice. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Other messy sandwich recipes on the site:
BBQ Pulled Sweet Potato Sandwiches
Collard Greens Pesto Chickpea Salad Sandwiches
This recipe was originally published in July 2015, and was updated in July 2020 with an improved recipe and new photographs.
I'm Shannon, the writer and photographer of Yup, it's Vegan! I'm a morning person based in Baltimore, USA. My mission is to create healthy plant-based recipes that anyone would enjoy, using seasonal produce with inspiration from global flavors.
Blake says
I just made this and it was SO good! Thank you for the wonderful recipe.
Marsha says
I made this today and it is fantastic! Literally every recipe I’ve tried from this blog has been great.You’ve helped make going vegan so much easier for me. Thank you!
Carmen says
I made this recipe tonight with my fiancé. It was so good he refused to let me finish the remaining 1/2 cup of the sloppy joe mix, even though he had already had two servings! We did replace the maple syrup with Sriracha barbecue sauce, which added this nice smoky and spicy flavor to the filling. We topped the wheat burger buns with vegan mayo for a less dry sandwich. Thank you so much for this recipe!! This will definitely be added to our weekly rotation; especially given how cost effective it is to make. Lastly, it is a nice middle ground recipe for us. He would have fake meat with every meal if he could, but I can barely stand it (we are both vegan but I prefer to eat natural foods as opposed to imitation products). Thanks to the garbanzo beans in this dish, it satisfies both of our preferences. 5/5!
Shannon @ Yup, it's Vegan says
That’s great to hear! I was just craving this recipe the other day and thinking about updating it with some snazzier pictures. I’m glad it’s getting some love, happy to hear it was a good fit for folks with mixed tastes.
Sassy says
Is there anything I could substitute for the peppers? I’m allergic to capsicums. Or would I be better to just leave them out and not sub with anything?
Shannon @ Yup, it's Vegan says
Use some celery or just omit them!
Karen Beasley says
Delicious. I can’t eat spicy food, so left out the hot sauce. This will be a new regular in my house!
Monica Geglio says
See… Recipes like this are awesome! I don’t understand why it’s so hard for meat eaters to see that vegetarianism is GREAT. Thanks for a new vegan sloppy joe recipe, I’ll have to try this soon. My kids love everything about chickpeas so I’m sure it’ll be a hit! <3
The Vegan Junction says
Love all the veggies! And chickpeas. Yumm. 🙂
Doug says
Superb recipe for chickpea sloppy joe. I serve my 3 20-something sons meat dinner and my wife and I vegan dinner in parallel. So I saw this and also found a great meat based sloppy joe recipe. I felt this was just as good, that means it tastes like sloppy joe but without meat or meat fat. I highly recommend this.
Anna says
omg that looks super delicious!!!! yummy
Marina Nikitovic says
Hello my new favorite way of eating chickpea 🙂
Thnx for this Shannon!
xx
Marina
Little Vegan Bear says
These look great! I’m obsessed with condiments, in fact just today I built a rack for all my hot sauces, so always keen to try different spins. My favourite at the moment are smokey chipotle style ones with a kick.
Vanisha says
These look so so yummy! What a brilliant idea! 🙂