Month-of-One-Pan Meals: Not Your Mama's Meatloaf

Welcome to my annual Month-of Recipes on this blog. Go rummaging in the attic here and you’ll find past recipe months for appetizers, chicken, soup, mini-desserts, and more. The way it works is, for each day in February I post a recipe that fits the category. This month is one-pan meals, excluding pizza, most casseroles, and slow cooker recipes.

When I was first dating, DH, I probed to see what foods he liked and didn’t like. (Duh! The way to a man's heart blah blah) Meatloaf was a no-go! Meatloaf? That was a standard while I was growing up! How can you not like meatloaf? Apparently it was standard for him, too, and he didn’t like the bland, lay-there-meat-and-take-it version his mom made. Not to diss her (loved the lady!), but a cook she wasn’t, and she admitted as much. My love of cooking always surprised her.

So, the challenge, right, was to create a meatloaf he’d like and eat and ask for more? I can do this, I told myself.

So, no bland, play-dead-on-the-plate meatloaf was ever served at my house. Here’s what I’ve been making for decades! It must have worked ‘cause he’s still around (and asking for meatloaf sandwiches for lunch!).

One of the best things about this meatloaf dinner is there’s enough for the two of us for another meal AND to have cold meatloaf sandwiches later in the week! And he doesn’t even add extra salsa to the top of it like he used to do in my early experimenting days. Out with the catsup from my mom’s recipe, and in with salsa!

Not Your Mama’s Meatloaf (serves 4-6)

1 pound low-fat hamburger

1 egg, beaten

½ cup salsa

3 garlic cloves, minced

½ cup panko (or other bread crumbs)

1 medium onion, divided

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large sweet potato, cut in rounds

2 long carrots, cut in strips

16 asparagus spears

2 parsnips, peeled and cut in strips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix hamburger with egg, salsa, garlic, and panko. Cut onion in half. Dice one half and add to meat mixture.

 

Thoroughly combine and a shape into a loaf and put in your baking dish.

Cut the remaining onion into 4 sections and separate the pieces. Cut sweet potato into

rounds. Cut carrots and parsnips into strips. Snap woody ends off asparagus. Massage olive oil over all the veggies and arrange around the meatloaf.

Bake in oven for 45-60 minutes, testing for doneness of vegetables at 45 minutes. 

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up

He loves meatloaf now, and when I call him on his earlier dislike, he doesn’t quite deny it, but he has a hard time remembering those days. “Yours tastes so good!”