How To Make Old-fashioned Meatloaf Recipe | Superfashion.us (2024)

FAQs

What is the basic meatloaf formula? ›

The Basic Meatloaf Formula

All recipes for meatloaf start with the same basic formula: 2 pounds of ground meat and a “panade” made of bread or crackers soaked in milk. Along with a few eggs, this panade helps to hold the ground meat together and adds some essential moisture to the mix.

Use high-fat meat.

For a meatloaf made with a leaner beef or turkey, consider mixing in some ground pork and/or veal in order to achieve a moist, tender meatloaf. Chopping up bacon and adding it to the mix is always a great way to add fat. Oh, and covering it in bacon never hurts, either.

Bread crumbs serve as a binding agent for the loaf, helping it not crumble after it's cooked.

Milk and other dairy products, like heavy cream and buttermilk, contain both water and fat, adding two types of moisture to our meatloaf. There's a long-held theory that milk can tenderize ground meat, and this is the reason often cited for cooking ground meat in milk to make a Bolognese-style ragù.

Eggs. Sure, egg yolks add some rich flavor to a meatloaf, but the real reason we need eggs is for structure—to help bind the meatloaf together. This is especially important since we're making a free-form meatloaf, or one that you shape by hand, versus using a loaf pan.

Adding baking soda to the beef keeps it moist by stopping the proteins from binding too quickly (which dries out the meat). Using sauteed onions instead of raw ensures the onions don't turn out crunchy and adds extra moisture to the meatloaf.

Not only does sheet pan meatloaf bake up faster than its traditional loaf-shaped cousin, it also has more surface area, meaning every bite is laden with that deliciously caramelized topping.

Fewer eggs will create a denser and firmer meatloaf that will be more compact and easier to slice, but more eggs can create a more tender and light texture that allows the meatloaf to melt in your mouth.

Mixing your ingredients too much is a very common mistake that can really make for meatloaf with a tough, dry texture. Self-control is the key; once the ingredients are mixed in, stop. Remember, the meatloaf is going to be mixed more as it's shaped before baking.

What can you put under meatloaf to soak up grease? ›

A neat trick to soak up the grease under your meatloaf is to line the bottom of the pan with bread slices. The bread soaks up the grease as the loaf bakes. When the meatloaf is done, you can either throw out the bread or bake it to make some truly indulgent toast.

A-Meatloaves most often crumble when they contain too many bread crumbs or too few eggs or when they have not cooled partially in the fat-filled loaf pan in which they were baked. We suggest adding no more than 1/3 cup of crumbs for each pound of meat and adding 1 egg for each pound of meat plus an extra egg.

Shape: Meatloaf is baked in a loaf pan, so it comes out shaped like a loaf of bread. Hamburgers are round, flat patties cooked in a frying pan or on a grill. Toppings: Meatloaf is often glazed with a ketchup-based sauce before it's done baking.

The origin of meatloaf dates back to ancient times, when minced or ground meat dishes were common due to the limited availability of meat. However, the modern concept of meatloaf as we know it today began to take shape in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Meat – For the most tender and flavorful meatloaf, we use a combination of ground beef (preferably with 80% fat content, sometimes referred to as “ground chuck”), ground pork, and ground veal. Some stores will package this together as “meatloaf mix”; if your store does, then simply purchase 2 pounds of meatloaf mix.