Don't Let Your Meat Loaf

I usually make meat loaf once every two weeks.

  • Meat loaf mix from the store (beef, pork, veal ground together)
  • An egg
  • Bread crumbs
  • Some finely-diced garlic, onion & bell pepper, gently-sauteed to soften (since they otherwise won't have time to cook in some of the variations below)
  • A good squirt of Sriracha
  • Salt, pepper, etc..

Squish it all up. And now you have pink slime.

Given a bowl of this squishy mess, I usually make one of the following:

  1. The classic: a big ol' loaf
  2. Mini loaves cooked in a muffin pan. They're a handy serving size!
  3. Micro loaves cooked in a mini-muffin pan. They're like little oddly-shaped meatballs.
  4. Meatballs (hand-roll, fry, bake). Takes the most work, but frying them makes increases the yummy.

Wifey likes the smaller ones because they're easier to take to work - pop a handful of meatballs into a baggie and then you can eat them with your fingers! And, the little ones cook quicker. But it takes a lot of work to clean a muffin pan after meatloaf grease has caramelized all over it.

But, the best thing to do with meatloaf mush is to shape it into patties and then grill it. And put Pepper Jack cheese on it. It's sublime.

2 thoughts on “Don't Let Your Meat Loaf

    1. cleek Post author

      for the big loaf, i put it on foil on a flat cookie sheet, so the grease can spread out and maybe catch fire. i’ve thought i should invest in an official meat loaf riser thing that holds it up a little and has a perforated bottom so the stuff can drain away.

      for the muffins, i tip the pan a little, to get the excess to drain out of the cups onto the foil-lined cookie sheet i put underneath the muffin pan. but that only gets rid of a little, so they’re really meatloaf confit balls.

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