Classic Meatloaf Recipe...just like Mom used to make. |The Best Meatloaf Recipe (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.

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.

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

American meatloaf has its origins in scrapple, a mixture of ground pork and cornmeal served by German-Americans in Pennsylvania since colonial times. Meatloaf in the contemporary American sense did not appear in cookbooks until the late 19th century.

Combine ground beef, onion, milk, bread crumbs and egg in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Transfer into prepared loaf pan. Mix ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard together in a small bowl until well combined; pour over meatloaf and spread it evenly over the top.

Should I cook my meatloaf covered or uncovered? The meatloaf can be cooked uncovered. However, if you are concerned about it burning, you can cover the meatloaf with foil for the first 45 minutes and uncover it for the final 15 minutes to allow the meatloaf to brown on top.

Metal pans are great conductors of heat; in other words, they heat up quickly, but in turn, they also cool down more rapidly once removed from the heat source. Additionally, metal pans can withstand higher temperatures than glass.

Whether you slather a thick layer of ketchup on top of the meatloaf before it goes into the oven, add a few tablespoons to the ground meat mixture, or serve extra ketchup on the side, this tangy-sweet, umami-rich condiment balances out the richness of the beef, making it an essential part of the dish.

What does adding an extra egg to meatloaf do? ›

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.

“Bread crumbs are the best filler for meatloaf,” Salazar says. Dry bread crumbs work with your other liquid binding ingredients (like milk and egg—more on those in a minute) to help hold your loaf together and give it a crumbly, tender texture.

Mix ground beef, quick oats, onion, milk, eggs, 1/4 cup ketchup, parsley, garlic, salt, basil, and black pepper together in a large bowl until thoroughly combined; pat the mixture into a 9x5-inch loaf pan. Bake meatloaf in the preheated oven until firm and no longer pink inside, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

Combine ground beef, onion, milk, bread crumbs and egg in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Transfer into prepared loaf pan. Mix ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard together in a small bowl until well combined; pour over meatloaf and spread it evenly over the top.

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.