Classic Meatloaf
By Catherine Newman
By Catherine Newman
Makes: 6 servings
Total Carbohydrates: 7 grams per serving
Hands-on Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
This meatloaf is ready to go in the oven before the oven is even preheated and that’s partly because one time I forgot to add chopped onion, and now I on purpose never add it. If onion is important to you, by all means chop one up and add it, either raw or briefly sauteed in oil. But I can’t tell you how little I miss it! The Onion Question aside, this is a wonderful meatloaf: moist and flavorful and – like all worthwhile meatloaves – as good cold the next day as it is freshly baked.
If you’re looking to:
Lower the fat: Use ground turkey or leaner ground beef.
Lower the salt: Reduce salt to 1 teaspoon.
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef (ideally 80/20 or 85/15 lean to fat ratio)
½ cup rolled oats or uncooked plain oatmeal
¼ cup milk (I use whole milk)
1 large egg, beaten
2 tablespoons low- or no-sugar ketchup (plus 3 tablespoons for topping)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
A pinch of thyme, basil, oregano, and/or rosemary, or ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning blend
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Black pepper to taste
Instructions
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Heat the oven to 350° F and line a loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving some hanging over the sides. (The parchment paper isn’t strictly necessary; it just makes it easier to remove the meatloaf neatly after it’s cooked.)
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Thoroughly mix together all of the ingredients (except the ketchup for topping). I do this in my stand mixer with the paddle attachment, but you can also do it by hand with a wooden spoon. I know that sometimes you want to mix ground meat very gently, but this is not one of those times. Once it’s well mixed, you can microwave or pan-fry a pinch of the mixture to see if it needs any more seasoning – salt, herbs, or spices – before you bake it.
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Scoop the mixture into the pan, smooth the top and dome it a little bit if you’re feeling fussy, then spoon on the rest of the ketchup and spread it around with the back of the spoon.
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Bake until it’s cooked through, around 50–60 minutes (it will be browning by this point, and shrinking from the sides of the pan a bit), or until it reaches 160° F on an instant-read thermometer, if you’re fancy like that.
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Cool in the pan for ten minutes before moving it to a cutting board. (Or serve it directly from the pan, which is what I do when I’m not photographing it for diaTribe.)
About Catherine
Catherine loves to write about food and feeding people. In addition to her recipe and parenting blog Ben & Birdy (which has about 15,000 weekly readers), she edits the ChopChop series of mission-driven cooking magazines. This kids’ cooking magazine won the James Beard Publication of the Year award in 2013 – the first non-profit ever to win it – and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award. Her book "How to Be A Person" was published in 2020. She also helped develop Sprout, a WIC version of the magazine for families enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), as well as Seasoned, their senior version. They distribute over a million magazines annually, through paid subscriptions, doctor’s offices, schools, and hospitals. Their mission started with obesity as its explicit focus – and has shifted, over the years, to a more holistic one, with health, happiness, and real food at its core. That’s the same vibe Catherine brings to the diaTribe column.
[Photo Credit: Catherine Newman]