For Thanksgiving, my father-in-law requested that I bring a meatloaf over to his home. I love my father-in-law, so of course I happily obliged. It also helps that the meatloaf is super easy to make! For the kids, I made some meatloaf muffins – same ingredients with just a few changes in the directions. I had also made these meatloaf muffins for a church Thanksgiving potluck earlier in the week. There were no leftovers, so I guess that they were good!
When I’m making the meatloaf muffins to eat at home, I use my regular muffin tin. When I’m making them to take someplace else, I just buy an aluminum tin so that I can simply “bake and take”. That way, I don’t have to be concerned about waiting around to make sure that I get my tin back. My kids are the ones who usually like to close down a party…not me. 🙂
Mighty Easy Meatloaf Muffins
Yields: 10 meatloaf muffins
Ingredients:
- ½ medium onion, chopped
- ½ medium green pepper, chopped
- 1 lb of ground beef
- 1 slice of the end of a bread loaf, crumbled up (or you can use bread crumbs)
- 1 egg
- ½ cup barbecue sauce (1/4 cup for the mixture; ¼ cup for the topping)
- Seasonings, to match your tastes (I like to include 1/2 an onion soup mix pack with my other seasonings – seasoned salt, black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.)
Directions:
1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Chop 1/2 an onion and 1/2 a green pepper. Sauté them together in a frying pan until they start to get tender – approximately 3 minutes. (You can use the vegetables own “juice” or a little olive oil to sauté them.)
3. In a large bowl, mix together the vegetables, beef, bread, egg, ¼ cup of the barbecue sauce and the additional seasonings.
4. Using a medium sized ice cream scooper, add a scoop of the mixture to each opening of the muffin tin.
5. Bake the muffins in the heated oven for 30 minutes.
6. Remove the muffin tin from the oven and drain any excess liquid. Cover the meat with 1/4 cup of barbecue sauce. Return the tin to the oven and bake the muffins for another 5 minutes.
(I try to let the meatloaf set for up to ½ an hour before serving, so that it won’t crumble as easily, but that is not necessary.)
Variations:
-You can substitute ground chicken, turkey or pork for the beef.
-You can also add any leftover vegetables to your mixture. (I often add red peppers, spinach and such.)
