Meat Loaf
Do you have any recipes for meat loaf with bacon strips ?
I decided to ask a fun question, and I'm in the mood to try a new meat loaf . I’d be interested in trying a meat loaf with bacon strips added . I’d REALLY be interested in trying meat loaf with heavily peppered bacon . Does anybody have any good ideas ? Thank you in advance for your answers .
I wish I had a great recipe to share, but I tried the same thing and I'm hoping sharing my results with you may help you have a far better outcome then I did. I too thought the flavors would be great together so I made my basic meatloaf recipe and then layered the strips across the tops so they went down over the sides a bit. I assumed the bacon would crisp up during cooking. Sadly it did not and while the flavors DID taste really good together, the texture was just awful IMHO, and I ended up pulling off a lot of soggy bacon fat. Plus it had an excessive "fatty taste" I wasn't pleased with. Just think undercooked bacon and that explains it.
I made a mental note that when I tried this again I would cook the bacon about halfway done first, and then lay it across the top. The other alternative I considered would be to fully cook it first, drain/blot the bacon well to remove excess grease, crumble it and mix it up into the meatloaf. I never did try it again (bacon is such a treat for me to make because of its fat vs my cholesterol lol, that on the few times a year I treat myself to it I just want to savor it by itself). So I can't tell you how this would work BUT I can't imagine it wouldn't be a vast improvement, since I know I wasn't happy with it by just laying the bacon across the meatloaf. And I'm pretty sure either method (or better yet, a combo of both, with some fully cooked crumbled bacon added and some half cooked strips on top) might be the way to go! I can see that being especially flavorful with the peppered bacon.
BTW, since there are some meatloaf recipes here that are pretty different than mine, thought I'd go ahead and share my basic old faithful meatloaf recipe as it's really good (if I do say so myself lol). I've done a ton of variations on it over the years but this is the tried and true one I always go back to;
approx 1 1/2 lb-2 lbs ground beef
1 egg
Either some fresh day old bread torn into very small pieces or panko bread crumbs (4C Seasoned breadcrumbs work well too, but that brand is the only seasoned crumbs I think are good in a meatloaf. JMHO of course lol).
Either 1 fresh onion that I saute and THEN add to meat OR a handful of dried chopped onion pieces (sold in the spice aisle and a staple in my kitchen. They soften when used in cooking. But using raw fresh onion in a meatloaf if terrible unless you enjoy raw onion as it never softens enough)
A generous squirt of Ketchup--probably between 1/8th to 1/4 cup
A very generous amount of Garlic powder (NOT garlic salt) approx 2 plus teaspoons
A smaller amount of onion powder
1-2 teaspoons of Worcestershire Sauce (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Mix, shape into loaf and bake approx 45 minutes in a 350 oven. Sorry for the approximations but I do it by sight and never measure, and it varies based on how much chopped meat I have.
Anyway hope my previous mediocre bacon meatloaf experience ends up with you making a perfect one!!!