Meatloaf
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Baking time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Total time: 2 hours
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- ½ cup dried cracker crumbs (approximately 9 individual saltines crumbled)
- 1 cup oats (regular not quick)
- 2 slices of bread, cubed (sourdough adds nice flavor)
Seasonings:
- 1½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon dry mustard
- ¼ teaspoon ground sage
- ½ teaspoon ground thyme
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
Onions:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion finely chopped
Moist Ingredients:
- ½ cup applesauce
- ¾ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ homemade barbecue sauce or store bought barbecue sauce of your choice
Beef:
- 1½ pounds lean ground beef
Optional Bacon to Line Pan:
Topping:
Instructions
-
Preheat oven to 350°.
- Grease a standard loaf pan and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together cracker crumbs, oats, and cubed bread.
- Mixing in seasonings.
- In a small skillet heat olive oil.
- Add chopped onion to pan and cook until soft and golden brown in color.
- Add cooked onions to mixing bowl and mix in.
- Mix in moist ingredients.
- Mix in ground beef. The best tools for mixing are your hands!
- The mixture should hold together well. If it seems too moist add a ¼ to ½ cup more oats.
- For a more flavorful meatloaf, take 4 strips of uncooked bacon and line the bottom of the baking pan. Place the strips of bacon across the short part of the bottom of the pan so that they go up the sides of the pan evenly on both sides. See slide show for a demonstration of this.
- Spoon the beef mixture into the prepared loaf pan. If you are using bacon spoon the beef mixture on top of the bacon.
- Spread the 2 tablespoons of catsup over the top of meatloaf mixture.
- Bake for 1½ hours.
- Cool ten minutes then turn out of pan.
- Slice and serve.
Recipe adapted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook. New York: Golden Press (1980).
Comments
Since you are going to have the meatloaf in the oven for such a long period of time why not add a few side dishes to the oven as well? You could make baked potatoes and baked acorn squash.