Fun Ways to Make Meatloaf Ahead of Time

I love to cook, but I don’t always have the time to devote to it, to make good nutritious meals all the time. Some days I am on the go a lot, just as many of you are, so I like to have meals ready to pop into the oven. I have never liked those prepared meals that you can buy in the store. To me they taste rather bland, and they are so expensive.

When I go shopping I look for buys on meat. If I see a good buy on ground beef I will buy as much as my budget will allow. I often pick up 20 to 25 pounds of ground beef at a time. You don’t want to eat hamburgers all the time, or at least I don’t so finding great ways to serve the ground beef can be a challenge. I have so many good ways that I can use ground beef that my family never gets sick of it.

When I am out shopping I always pick up some of those disposable baking pans. I like the loaf pans because I make a lot of meatloaf. I will make up about 3 or 4 meatloaves at a time, and then wrap them in foil, date them and put them in the freezer. I have many ways to make meatloaf, and I would like to share some of them right now.

My first meatloaf is made with flavored bread crumbs that resemble Stove Top Stuffing. In fact, you can use Stove Top brand if you want to. Here is what you do:

In a large bowl place the amount of ground beef you want for a meat loaf. (I usually make 2 at a time.) Chop up one large onion and add to the mix and then crack a couple of eggs and drop them into the meat; squish the meat and egg mixture until it is well incorporated. Then add two cups of flavored bread crumbs. (Hold any salt at this point, because the bread crumbs have salt in the flavoring. You can always add salt afterward to suit your taste.) Mix the bread crumbs in good, and then ad a half can of brown gravy into the meatloaf mixture. Next add a good amount of A-1 sauce to the mixture. Now your meatloaf is ready to go into your loaf pan. Cover your meatloaf with the remaining gravy that you have left. Pop your meatloaf into a 350 degree oven and bake for 1 hour or until done.

The next meatloaf is made with spaghetti sauce. I like to use Prego, just because that is my favorite, but you can use any kind you wish. Put your meat in a bowl and add chopped onions, 1 chopped green bell pepper, and 2 eggs. Mix it up really good. Next crumble up a sleeve of saltine crackers and put them into the meat mixture, and then add about a cupful of spaghetti sauce; you need to use enough to moisten the meatloaf. Pour about ¼ cup of Worcestershire sauce or your favorite steak sauce. When your meatloaf is well incorporated, place it into your loaf pan and cover it with more spaghetti sauce. Bake at 350 for a total of one hour or until done, and just before the meatloaf is ready to come out of the oven, cover the meatloaf with your favorite kind of cheese and put it back into the oven a few minutes to melt the cheese.

I make these meatloaves 2 at a time and freeze them for a quick meal. I just reheat the meatloaf until it is sizzling and then it is ready to serve with a salad or whatever vegetable you want. Enjoy!