Meatloaf Muffins 2 Ways

I love meatloaf.  It is one of my favorite comfort food meals.  Everyone has a different version of meatloaf, some like lots of veggies and other stuff added, but I like mine somewhat simple.  It doesn’t need a lot added to get a great flavor when you start with good quality ground beef.  I use 80/20 ground beef for most of my recipes, if you go leaner, there is less flavor and it will be drier and if you buy the fattier ones, they just seem to cook away.  Recently I turned my regular meatloaf into meatloaf muffins.

I used about 2 lbs of ground beef and added a small onion, egg, ketchup, salt, pepper and bread.  This is a great way to use up old bread or the heels of a loaf of bread, I used about 4 slices of bread and tore them up into little pieces.  I have used old hamburger or hot dog buns, just really whatever I have on hand.  I have tried using dried bread crumbs, crackers, oatmeal and all other kinds of fillers over the years and I prefer the regular white bread pieces.

After I mixed it all up, I lightly pressed the mixture into a regular 12 cup muffin pan.  I found out about this point that we were not going to be able to have this for supper that night, so I covered the pan with clear wrap and placed the muffin pan in the freezer.  I wasn’t sure when I would be able to finish cooking this meal so I froze them, but if you were going to cook them the next night, you could just put them in the refrigerator instead.  I thought that I would be able to pop them out of the pan once they froze but I couldn’t, so if you wanted to remove them from the pan, I would line the cups with clear wrap so they would be easier to remove from the pan.  Then they could be placed in a freezer bag.  You can read more about how I do Meal Planning.   This recipe can also be placed in another type of pan if preferred at this point, many people use a loaf pan, but I prefer a biscuit pan.  The meatloaf cooks a little faster in the biscuit pan than it does in a loaf pan.

It was about a week before I was able to cook the meatloaf muffins, but when I did, all I had to do was set the muffing pan on the counter for a little while to thaw.  You could place them in the refrigerator the night before, but I didn’t think about it in time.  Once they had thawed a little, I squeezed some ketchup or barbecue sauce on the top and spread it out.

My husband and son love barbecue sauce, they eat it on almost any kind of meat.  I have made 2 different meatloaves before so that I could put barbecue sauce inside and on top of theirs.  Making the individual ones allows for making some with ketchup and some with barbecue sauce with no extra trouble.  We had oven roasted onion potatoes, baked beans and green beans along with our meatloaf muffins.

Meatloaf Muffins 2 Ways

Ingredients

2 lbs ground beef

1 cup bread pieces

1 small onion, diced

1/4 cup ketchup or barbecue sauce

1 egg

salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and place in muffin pan.  Top with ketchup or barbecue sauce and cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes, place individual meatloaves on platter or plates to serve.

*If cooking in a loaf pan, increase cook time to 1 hour.

Skillet Onion Potatoes and Corn Casserole would be good with these meatloaf muffins.

Leave a comment and let me know how it worked for you.

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