No, it's closer to a mild, sweet and sour barbecue sauce. It's usually got tomato paste / ketchup, tomato sauce, yellow mustard, Worcestershire, brown sugar, and onions, green bell pepper and garlic.

It's just beef mince browned with the veggies, then cooked in the sauce, served on toasty white bread buns. It's a messy meal, but it's one most people raised in the US ate as kids. It's often not made from scratch, but with a can of sauce and a pound of beef.

We also eat pulled pork and brisket sandwiches here, just slow cooked barbecue meat with or without sauce, sometimes with pickles, always on a white bun. Sloppy Joe is like a budget version of that, which you can make in 20 minutes, and not 8 hours.