Three Meat Meatloaf

Meatloaf often gets a bad rap, it’s hard to get excited over, often tastes bland, and can be too heavy of a meal. Enter in my Three Meat Meatloaf made with ground beef, ground pork and bits of bacon for additional smokey flavor. Traditionally people made meatloaf with ground beef shoved into a tiny loaf pan and topped with ketchup. The loaf pan meant the meat cooked in it’s own fat making it really heavy and greasy. Some people used a combo of ground beef, ground pork and ground lamb. I’ve cooked it this way and love it, but since some people have an aversion to eating lamb, I created this recipe without the lamb. The bacon is a nice touch and gives an amazing flavor to the end product. I’ve also created this with ground elk in place of the ground beef before too, and it works incredibly well.

I usually don’t like to put anything on the top of my meatloaf, but my husband is a fanatic about having some sort of glaze. I didn’t want to use ketchup, but knew I wanted it to be tomato based. My mother in law one time mixed ketchup and mustard to top it and I created a riff on that. It’s essentially a homemade ketchup glaze with mustard powder mixed in and boy is it delicious! It also browns really well in the oven, the finished meatloaf almost looks like a roasted cut of meat rather than ground meat with the gorgeous glaze on top. I prefer to use a silicone brush to do this, especially since we’re dealing with raw meat. You can throw this OXO Silicone brush right in the dishwasher after using it. http://amzn.to/2C2lh44

Several years ago my father in law showed me his method of shaping the meatloaf into a mound instead of shoving it into a tiny loaf pan. It’s a great way to cook the meatloaf, the fat has a chance to escape, the meat has plenty of room to cook and the end result is a light and moist meatloaf without being greasy and tough like meatloaves past. After cooking them this way I became a meatloaf fan. An instant read thermometer inserted in the middle ensures it’s cooked all the way through. You want the internal temp to be at 145 degrees. My very favorite instant read thermometer is the Thermapen by Thermoworks. You can find it here: http://www.thermoworks.com/Thermapen-Mk4

I like to serve mine with my Simple Arugula Salad, but you can always serve it with Creamy Mashed Potatoes for a real treat.

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