As times got better, people went back to meatier versions,
and now only low-budget, high-volume food service operations feature this
culinary dinosaur. I did an Italian meatball-inspired version, which was quite
nice, but this method will work with virtually any meatloaf recipe.
As I say in the video, I decided to spike my tomato sauce
with too much balsamic vinegar, which rendered it not great. So, if you’re
going to follow this recipe, just use a regular pasta sauce, or your favorite
meatloaf glaze. I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 1 giant meatloaf (about 10 large portions):
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds ground chuck
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
cayenne to taste
2 large eggs, beaten
2 oz Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (about a packed 1/2
cup)
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
1 1/2 cups very dry white bread crumbs (not toasted!)
1 1/2 cups milk to soak (squeeze out excess)
3 or 4 cups of tomato sauce to bake in, optional
55 comments:
Is there any low-carb substitute for bread crumbs? Thanks!
You think they use a lot of Parmagiano-Reggiano in prison?
I think you missed the parm part of the video!
Kritz, there is not.
@Kritz oatmeal maybe? Not low-carb, but low GI.
I was way way way too excited to see meatloaf on the blog. I could eat my weight in meatloaf daily (which with this meatloaf, wouldn't be that hard).
For a glaze idea, I like to use soysauce and brown sugar. You can use some stock in the pan while it cooks to keep it moist, and to make a gravy when it's done.
Thanks chef!
How ironic..a "tossed salad" with a prison meal..
Pure genius or just coincidence?
Chef John, I think you stole my meatball recipe and loaf-ified it. I never realized my bread proportion was high by modern standards, but I guess that's the kind of meatball I grew up with, so I stick to it.
By the way, have you ever added a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce to your meatloaf or meatball mix? I think it makes for better flavor. Can't go wrong with umami, although that deliciously hefty mountain of parmesan certainly gives you a head start on that!
I like stretching my meat further.
Sanda, funny you ask, since I don't put Worcestershire sauce in MB, but usually do in ML, so I should have tried that here!
Good call on the W sauce. Have to try. I've always used an old restaurant recipe for meatballs that called for soda water instead of milk. Thoughts?
The YouTube comment section for this is fantastic, by the way!
I use crushed saltine crackers to about 3lbs of ground burger and ketchup goes on top the last 30 minutes or so. That's how I was raised eating it and that's how I make it. Of course it must have bell peppers and onions too.
I've always used this ratio of 1-1/2C breadcrumbs to 2# meat. My mother, who grew up during the depression, didn't cook fancy, but this is one of the dishes she taught me to cook when I was small. I do however, now use 1# bulk breakfast sausage and 1# ground chuck as well as a seasoned bread crumb for stuffing mixture as I think it's made the whole thing a lot tastier.
This does explain why I don't care much for 'modern' meatloaf though.
Chef John, sorry if this has already been posted but have you ever thought about signing up for the food network show chopped? I'd love to see you win that competition!!
You're correct, CJ. Balsamic vinegar was the wrong choice.
Would it be terribly wrong to use ground turkey for this?
Why can I not watch a recipe video without sitting through a g**d***ed commercial?
I'm perfectly happy to skip great food, before I'll be forced to sit through advertising.
Just my personal opinion...
I made it tonight. Really good, the tomato sauce is a great addition to a regular meatload. However, be careful! I used Whole Food Market's breadcrumbs, which thin. After 20 minutes the milk was completely gone and not squizzable. It had become a paste that was nearly impossible to mix with the meat and the rest of the ingredients.
It didn't completely ruin the meatloaf but there were a few big chunks of breadcrumb paste in my slice that were not delicious.
My advice: more milk or less crumbs if they are very very finely crumbed.
Right on time for the premiere of the new season of Orange Is The New Black... Looks like something Red would serve up.
The milk and bread crumb mixture is called a panade. The meatloaf looks amazing!
I want to take a second and thank chef john for this recipe. Being the thirteen year old food inthusiest I am. This dish was easy to make and very good. My whole family loved it. Thank you chef john
Glad you and they liked it!
There are just not enough words for yum. I Was not expecting this to be so amazing. Even without a glaze or sauce it is the most delicious meatloaf i have ever had. Kudos chef!
Chef John:
I really appreciate your modesty in some of your videos. The "I didn't like the balsamic tomato..." is very helpful. I like that you are able both try new things and appreciate the rest of the recipe and try to move on to make the recipe better next time. :)
Thanks!
I really enjoyed this meatloaf. Prison kidding aside, I would cook this in place of the typical dry meat-only loaf. I also enjoyed the comment about the fastfood industry, and how they "use breading" in their hamburgers. Not sure if this is proven, but makes sense to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ubfq7OuWPk
Chef John, recognize this music???
This is surprisingly similar to the meatloaf I grew up on. I'm going to have to ask my Mom if she's a convict.
It would explain a lot. Or at least explain why she makes all of our knives herself.
I found the bread crumbs to be bland so I used Rotel tomatoes and chilies to add to the bread crumbs instead of milk. Just make sure your meat is lean so you don't end up with a casserole dish full of grease. Next time I will try oats as a filler.
Dear Chef John,
What kind of range do you have, and are you pleased with it?
I made this Alcatraz Meat Loaf and it tasted Fun-Key.....Real Fun Key! I must have screwed something up. My wife took one bite and announced "you're taking me out where.....!!
I made this Alcatraz Meat Loaf and it tasted Fun-Key.....Real Fun Key! I must have screwed something up. My wife took one bite and announced "you're taking me out where.....!!
Dear Chef John:
Thank you for making my meatloaf failure a thing of the past. Since mine always come out hard and crumbly I followed your advice to the letter and used the meat thermometer. It was juicy, light, flavorful yet subtle. I used a large can of Cento crushed tomatoes and it was way better than ketchup! I let it rest a day (because I made two dinners at the same time). Thanks for saving my family from a rocky meatloaf :) lol
Dear Chef John:
Thank you for making my meatloaf failures a thing of the past. Since mine always come out hard and crumbly, I followed your advice to the letter and used the meat thermometer. It was juicy, light, flavorful yet subtle. I used a large can of Cento crushed tomatoes and it was way better than ketchup! I let it rest a day (because I made two dinners at the same time). Thanks for saving my family from a rocky meatloaf :) lol
Hello Chef John! I was wondering how exactly did you get these bread crumbs? And what kind of bread was it? How was it broken down? Thank you! Can't wait to try this recipe since all your recipes rock!!!
Just standard bread crumbs! It's the inside of a loaf of Italian bread, crumbled up and let to dry. Or toast in low oven until crisp.
Hi Chef John. Love your videos. Those of us who keep kosher cannot (as you probably know) add the grated cheese to the mixture. Seems like we're missing out. I've tried your meatloaf recipe with the pureed vegetables and it was great. Is this worth doing without the cheese? Or should we stick with the pureed vegetables?
Sorry, but no idea whether it would be worth it to you! I would miss it, but you may not. I'd just sneak a little in anyway...who will know? ;)
Currently waiting on this to finish in the oven. I had the same issue with un-squeezable bread crumbs (my fault) and skimped on cheap Parmesan cheese. I've never had parmigiano reggiano and I know I'm missing out but I'm still evolving. Chef John, thanks for yet another entertaining and informative video.
Mmmmmm so good! I made this meatloaf but with Chef John's Cramy Mushroom sauce from another meatloaf recipe. I used regular champignon mushrooms (what I had on hand) fresh herbs from my window sill, and a splash of cooking Sherry. And beef.from a local prize bull that lost his spunk. Great recipe! So simple to make.
Thanks Chef!
Chef John:
As far as bread crumbs could I use Panko italian style bread crumbs? I'm not for sure if they are dried or toasted but I do kike the flavor the have.
Thank you very much,
hippieneff69
THANK YOU, CHEF JOHN!!!! I followed your recipe nearly to the letter - I added a splash of steak sauce into the mix...I did make my own Sunday sauce to pour on top and of course, I used Italian San Marzano tomatoes, so your killer loaf + my killer sauce = EPIC good meatloaf! Muaw
The hubby RAVED!!!
Trying this today, but in a salsbury style with brown gravy , onions and mushrooms , serving over noodles, but omitting the sauce on top of course, as it is a salsbury steak in gravy !
So I just made this takes longer than and hour and fifteen minutes and I dunno if I added too many breadcrumbs or if it's the type I used from progreso but my meatloaf came out really really mushy I'm literally still cooking it and had to raise the temp because I'm fricken starving this thing needs to get done cooking dammit.
Ehrmagherd! Best meatballs I've ever made! EVER! Not a meatloaf I know, but I've used this twice now, and now must make bigger batches because everyone loves them. And Sandy, thanks for the worstchedrer...wersterchire, whatever suggestion to add Lea & Perrin's sauce. Made them even better
I actually used this recipe as a way to come up with a completely different meatloaf.
My wife wanted to bring her nieces over for a sleep over, so I decided to make a meatloaf, but didn't feel like grocery shopping for all the items.
I did everything you did in place of the ingredients I substituted mentioned below.
I had 2 lbs ground lamb instead of beef. I had halloumi cheese instead of parmigiano or salt (the halloumi is very salty on its own). Didn't have breadcrumbs, but had bread. Canned Evaporated milk, but no milk. I had a huge amount of fresh mint instead of parsley. And finally, I had no tomato sauce... so I made a mint glaze the lamb meat loaf
I used about 2 cups of bread in place of 1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs with 3/4 cup evaporated milk, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon worcestire sauce, and 1 tablespoon dijon mustard (making a total of 1 cup). I put it all through the blender until it was mushed well.
I used the fresh mint in place of parsley.
I mixed all the other ingredients together as you did, but then noticed I had a little less than 1/2 cup of fresh cranberries and felt that the flavor of the sour cranberries would compliment the fatiness of the lamb and would help calm the saltiness that the halloumi would bring. So I threw that in there too and mixed it into the ground meat. I cut the halloumi into threes so that I can place it into the center of the meatloaf and assembled the meatloaf into a sort of log that wrapped around the halloumi. I placed it into the oven and then realized I didn't have a sauce of any sort to glaze the meatloaf and so while it was roasting I figured out a solution and made a mint glaze using honey, a big handful of mint leaves, apple cider vinegar, and a bit of orange zest. I put through a food processor and it was almost like a mint jelly/glaze type of consistency.
I managed to come up and execut this solution within 15 minutes of the time I put the meatloaf in the oven. I took out the meatloaf and poured over part of the glaze on it and made sure it was coated throughout, and then I put it back in the oven... then I would take out the meatloaf every 15 minutes and brush the rest of the glaze on there until the meatloaf was fully cooked through.
It was ready and I served it with some wilted spinach with garlic & butter... and had a cherry tomato salad with balsamic vinegar.
You may be wondering what the outcome was though with the little nieces coming over, and well they approved of it and loved it. These kids are little foodies and appreciate real food. Just wanted to share this with you on how this recipe helped influence something completely new. I hope you have a chance to try out my version! Thank you for sharing your Chef John!! :D
Absolutely love this blog. Will probably make this recipe this week! When ever I think about making something I always come here first to see if Chef John has done his version of it!
My significant other loves this recipe so much, he asked that I make it for him for Valentine's day. Once more my thanks goes out to you Chef John.
Could one combine this with your buttermilk meatloaf by using buttermilk on the crumbs instead of regular milk?
I'm really pigging out on your recipes lately, just made this, I was a bit worried because my milk-soaked bread crumbs turned into a bowl of heavy modeling clay, like plasticene -- and the internal temperature went a bit too high -- but it's fantastic!
First time I ever made a meat loaf to boot
I've actually used this recipe in order to make meatballs, and each time it comes out fantastic. Plus, if you are like me and gluten free, you can substitute 1 1/2 cups of re-hydrated TVP for the breadcrumbs. It comes out super moist just as if you had used breadcrumbs!
Can't wait to try this! I can see why the balsamic didn't work well with the sauce, but points for experimentation - but more than I got for trying raspberry vinaigrette as a chicken marinade forever known in my house as the "flamingo chicken incident" by some factions, and others insisting to this day I made them eat flamingo kabobs.
I usually do a mix of ketchup & Worcester sauces for meatloaf. Plain marinara would be great for this. Going to try it!
This is probably super-super old and no one is watching this, but why do you soak the breadcrumbs in milk specifically? It seems like an opportunity to add flavor, so why not something like the sauce you're going to glaze the meatloaf in (perhaps thinned out, of course, but something to add flavor) or something along those lines.
Love, love, love your recipes, Chef John. You're a gem. x
Thanks, Chef John! This is just the fix I need to enjoy meatloaf once again. I never thought of soaking my breadcumbs or baking my meatloaf in tomato sauce. My meatloaf would always come out so dry and I hated it, but my partner loves it. I'm going to give this a try this Saturday and see how it goes!
Kritz, yes, you can use pizza sauce instead.
Hi! Are fans still up in arms over the "P" word? If they are, please invite them over to the cafe at my job today, which is serving "Prison-style Frito Pie". I think we need to protest. hahahahahahaha
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