For years, when I made a meatloaf I used one with quick oats in the recipe. It seemed rather dry and except for the BBQ sauce topping rather bland. I eventually gave up and bought the microwavable meatloaves when they went on sale and I had a coupon. Certainly faster, and they tended to be juicier than my home loaf. However, last night I decided to try a recipe using bread instead of oats. This recipe was in my Dallas church’s recipe book put out by the Women’s Fellowship. It was very moist and quite tasty. BUT it fell apart when I tried to slice it even though I waited about 8 minutes. I noticed when we finished eating and I sliced the left-overs that it had firmed up a bit more, but it still tended to fall apart. Any suggestions? Should I have waited even longer? Should I have used more binder (bread)? I did bake it in a silicon loaf pan rather than the glass pan. Would that matter much? I would be interested in hearing about your favorite meatloaf recipe.
2 lbs. ground beef
4-5 slices white bread, toasted and finely crumbed to make 1 cup
3/4 cups milk
1 egg
3/4 cup diced canned tomatoes, drained
3 Tbsp. finely chopped sweet onion
3 Tbsp. finely chopped green pepper
3 Tbsp. finely chopped celery
1 1/2 cups ketchup, divided use
2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the bread crumbs, milk and egg; mix together with a fork. Let stand for 10 minutes. Add meat, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, celery, 1/4 c. ketchup, salt and pepper. Mix together with your hands. Put into a 9 x 5 x 3 inch glass pan pressing lightly. Shape into a loaf. Pour 1 cup of ketchup over the whole top. Place the loaf into the preheated oven. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Let stand in juices until cool and firm.
I've always used the Quaker oats recipe but use ketchup instead of tomato sauce, and always put ketchup or bbq sauce on top. For me, too dry is when I try to use a very lean ground beef. Bread (or oats) and egg are what bind meat loaf together. Maybe a bit more bread? did it have an egg?
ReplyDeleteAh, I see it does have an egg. Even drained the tomatoes might give off a fair amount of liquid and you already have the milk. Bet the bread/liquid ratio needs to be tweaked
ReplyDeleteHere's the recipe I've used here in France Printed it from Epicuriouscom. Quaker Oatmeal Prize Winning Meat Loaf
ReplyDelete1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef or turkey; 3/4 cups oats; 3/4 c. chopped onion; 1 egg lightly beaten; 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (only found with a bit of searching here); 2 cloves garlic minced; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/4 tsp black pepper.Oven 350; 55 minutes; let stand 5 minutes before slicing. You just mix everything together in a big bowl. I usually use my hands. It has a recipe for a topping but I just pour on ketchup. Have found it to be a bit dry if I use too lean a meat. So you see the only liquid is the ketchup and Worcestershire sauce
This recipe is close to what I used before, except it has 1/4 cup of onions and some tomato juice. It was given to me by a co-worker Elly Anderson at Grace College. Maybe next time I use the posted recipe I will add another slice of bread and not crumb it so fine.
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