My mom made horrible meatloaf, so small wonder I didn't care for it much until later in life. Any secrets to share? I always use multiple meats from beef, to veal, to ground pork. A little bell pepper in the mix with onion sure helps. Brown or "catsup" based gravy?

I hated meatloaf growing up because I don't like that typical ketchup glaze that everyone uses. When my mom made it, I always cut the crust off, put the rest between bread and ate it as a sandwich with some mustard. I like the Food Wishes recipe with mushroom brown gravy. Smoked meatloaf is good, but not really worth the effort.

My mom wasn't much of a cook, and still isn't. Meatloaf was in her regular rotation. If I never even see meatloaf again it will be too soon. Hell, I don't even like the musician because of my youth.

Totally agree. My point was that meatballs and meatloaf, without sauce/topping are basically the same.

Mine was always swimming in 3 fingers of its own grease. Hopefully meatballs were drained, or at least the grease is all mixed up in the spaghetti sauce.

Don't really like meatballs that much either.

I can eat both meatloaf and meatballs if someone is cooking, but I'd never order or make either. Too many better things.

I like meatloaf. Half ketchup, half plain for my family.

The Wife decided she wanted the catsup glaze tonight, so I made her make it. I'm not a fan, but ok…….

Chef Paul's Meat Loaf | Louisiana Kitchen & Culture (kitchenandculture.com)

Add cubes of cheese and mix them in well. Also, as already mentioned, put it on the smoker.

DatTallArchitect said:

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Add cubes of cheese and mix them in well. Also, as already mentioned, put it on the smoker.

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i will say that i have seen smoked meatloaf, and feel like i might be able to get on board with that. especially if it has cubes of cheese.

Bacon strips on top

We make a meatloaf variation about once a month that we really like. Instead of 1 loaf, we form smaller individual serving size loafs and place them on a baking pan. We fill up the rest of the pan with root vegetables (usually carrot, potato and onion), and let each person decide to glaze (or not) their individual loaf and what type of glaze to use (kids lean towards BBQ sauce). Juices from the meatloaves help to cook and add flavor to the vegetables. We use lean beef or ground turkey so there isn't too much fat.

First time we made it, my wife said it looked like poop on a pan, so that is what we call it now.

I loved my mom's meatloaf as a kid (of course I doused it in ketchup) but I'm sure it wouldn't hold up to the standards of food snobs like FIDO. He'd probably think it was low grade dog food.

Yeah I think its pretty fair to say most boomer-era meatloaf that was ketchupy is probably gross. I felt the same about my mom's growing up. But now its in my wife and I's rotation about once a month, and there is not a single ounce of ketchup in or near it.

For the glaze I will take some of the Rao's marinara or arribiata that we put into the loaf and mix it up with a little brown sugar, hot sauce, worcheshire and stone ground mustard to make a glaze. Get some peppers and stuff into the loaf too. Its always a hit

Made a great sandwich today.

I absolutely hate meatloaf and not a fan of meatballs either. For some reason, I always detect a metallic taste every time I have tried it. I always wondered why that was. Always figured it was the blood in the meat and it being baked, maybe, hell probably, I'm totally wrong about that. All I know is I can't escape the metallic taste so I have never been a fan.

AggieOO said:

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DatTallArchitect said:

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Add cubes of cheese and mix them in well. Also, as already mentioned, put it on the smoker.

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i will say that i have seen smoked meatloaf, and feel like i might be able to get on board with that. especially if it has cubes of cheese.

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Smoked meatloaf is a game changer. Hadn't made any in years until trying the smoker version. Now even my wife, who hates traditional meatloaf, requests the BBQ version from time to time.

Smoked meatloaf is a game changer, but it has to have the right seasoning and all sorts of little semi-crunchy pieces of vegetables (onions, bell pepper, etc.).

RM76 said:

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Smoked meatloaf is a game changer, but it has to have the right seasoning and all sorts of little semi-crunchy pieces of vegetables (onions, bell pepper, etc.).

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Agreed! The variation I do is to separate the mixture into several mini-loaves. Most recipes you see online have you smoke the whole thing as one big meat log. To me, the best part of meatloaf is the crispy edge so you get more of that with smaller loaves.

Tomato based meatloaf glazes are nasty. My wife has a recipe that uses a sweet spicy mustard glaze, and i could eat that version all the time.

Call me crazy but I really like Boston Market meatloaf!

This is what I do as well. Sweat some mushrooms peppers and onions and put into the meat mix

I didn't love it growing up because my mom wasn't much of a chopper and it had large chunks of onion and bell pepper. I could pick them out, but it wasn't until she hid them better that I started liking it. After a couple of decades without it, I regularly crave it. If I haven't made one in a while, Treebeards has a pretty good loaf.

My M-I-L makes a strong one with 1/2 beef and 1/2 Italian sausage. She makes the glaze out of a can of concentrated tomato soup. So yes, she heathens and back-woods it up, FIDO, but it is damn good.

As for the "varietal" of tomato soup: Campbell's