It doesn’t get any more down-home than a meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and corn. This very simple entrée also comes with the advantage of providing tasting leftovers either as dinner servings of lunch sandwiches. Many meatloaf recipes exist, but the I enjoy most contains a brown sugar glaze that’s very easy to bake into the loaf.
Note: This recipe provides a nice way to serve game such as deer or elk. I use buffalo sometimes because while ground buffalo has a nice taste the texture is too mushy for burgers.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Ground meat – beef is best, 80% fat
- 2 eggs
- 1 Onion – diced
- 1 Carrot – diced
- 1 Green bell pepper – diced
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup ketchup
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 ½ tsp Kosher salt
- ¼ tsp Black pepper – ground
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger – optional
- 1 cup finely crushed saltine cracker crumbs or bread crumbs
Process
- Mise en Place – measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- In large bowl, mix onion, carrot and bell pepper.
- In another bowl, whisk milk with eggs and then pour into vegetable bowl.
- Add the salt, pepper, ginger and crackers. Stir to get an even distribution.
- Add ground meat to mixture. Using disposable gloves, worked the meat by tossing the ingredients until everything is mixed well.
- In a large bread loaf pan (or two medium pans), press the brown sugar along the bottom then cover with ketchup and add the meat mixture on top.
- Place the loaf pan on a baking sheet to capture any spillage that might occur during baking. Place pan in oven for ~1 hour. This could take a lot longer but after an hour you can poke around the center to check how much longer the loaf may need. If you use two medium pans it will not take as long to bake. During the bake, some of the brown sugar and ketchup will percolate up the loaf infusing the meatloaf with flavors and juices.
- Remove from oven and let rest for ten minutes.
- Place a serving tray on top of the loaf and flip both the tray and pan over. The loaf will drop out leaving the brown sugar/ketchup glaze on top.
