Brookdale Sloppy Joe Sauce

Manwich canned sloppy joe sauce commercials were catchy and sort of cheesy back in the day.

Most notably, I recall the jingle, “I want a Manwich, please.” Going back farther, commercials talked about how you could “just brown some ground beef and have a Manwich night.” And remember, “a sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal.”

Aldi sells its own version of Manwich sauce: Brookdale Sloppy Joe Sauce.

While Aldi is known for eschewing a lot of name brands and primarily selling its own house brands, some house brands are less common and familiar than others at the discount grocer.

Brookdale is a small private label at Aldi that doesn’t seem to encompass much besides canned beef stew (which is actually quite tasty, if not low in sodium), canned chili, canned corned beef, canned corned beef and hash, canned Vienna sausage, and canned sloppy joe sauce.

In other words, Brookdale products are great for stocking your emergency shelf.

Brookdale Sloppy Joe Sauce cost $0.79 for a 15-oz. can at the time of publication. This is a Regular Buy, which means it’s at Aldi year round.

Manwich costs about $1 for a can that’s around 15-16 ounces from retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Dollar General, making the Aldi version a better deal.

Ingredients for the Aldi sauce are fairly straightforward, with mostly recognizable and whole foods other than high fructose corn syrup and xanthan gum. Ingredients are similar to Manwich sauce.

Ingredients for the Aldi Brookdale sauce are: tomato concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, distilled vinegar, and less than 2% of salt, chili pepper, dehydrated green and red bell peppers, tomato fiber, spices, xanthan gum, dehydrated onion, and dehydrated garlic.

Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)

One 1/4-cup serving netting you 30 calories, 0 grams of fat, 300 mg of sodium (13% DV), 7 grams of total carbohydrates (3% DV), 4 grams of total sugars, 3 grams of added sugars (6% DV), and 1 gram of protein.

The sauce — along with the ground beef or ground turkey that is essential to sloppy joes — can be heated in a skillet or in the microwave.

To prepare in a skillet, brown 1 pound of ground beef and drain well. Stir in one can of sloppy joe sauce and heat for 5 minutes on medium-high heat.

To prepare in the microwave, in a microwave-safe dish crumble 1 pound of ground beef. Microwave on high for 4-6 minutes and rotate dish 1/4 turn at 3 minutes. Drain well. Stir in one can of sloppy joe sauce and microwave on high for 3 minutes.

Serve cooked meat with sauce on a bun.

The can says it contains about seven servings, but it also says it makes about eight sandwiches.

In the skillet with cooked ground beef.

I served this to my family of four, and we were able to get eight sandwiches out of it.

As for how it tastes, I usually make sloppy joes using barbecue sauce, so this has a different taste. Specifically, it’s less sweet than barbecue sauce, but it also has a lot less added sugar than barbecue sauce, which may be a good trade off if you’re trying to limit sugar. In fact, at 3 grams of sugar per serving, this has less added sugar than Manwich, which has 6 grams of sugar per serving.

I noticed a few small bits of peppers in the sauce, but it’s not chunky by any means.

Overall, this tastes okay. It is not my favorite meal, but it’s not bad either, and it comes together easily to make a quick meal on a busy evening.

As a bonus, the can also has a recipe, which I have not yet tried:

Effortless Meatloaf

Ingredients: 

• 1 15-oz. can of Brookdale Sloppy Joe Sauce
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats, bread crumbs, or crackers

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine 3/4 can of sloppy joe sauce, ground beef, eggs, and oats. Mix until well blended.
3. Place meatloaf mixture in a loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.
4. Remove from oven and drain excess fat.
5. Top with remaining sloppy joe sauce and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow meatloaf to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.

The Verdict:

Brookdale Sloppy Joe Sauce is Aldi’s take on name-brand Manwich sloppy joe sauce. It tastes decent and makes a quick meal.