My husband is one of those meat and potatoes kinda guys. He’s not too much into anything green or red that might have grown on a plant. You know, anything especially “healthy” for you. Since we’ve been married he’s starting to come around. And with a little coercion I’ve been able to get to eat things his momma probably thought he’s never stick in his mouth!
Every now and then I like to cook him something that he won’t look at funny or smell first. 😉 Like I was telling you the other day, Max’s parents were here and his dad is eating low carb so I also wanted to make something that was going to fit his diet. I settled on these amazing mini meatloaves.
You will have to excuse how ridiculous these look. I don’t have one of those cute little loaf pans and apparently I’m not very good at making them look like loaves. They kinda look like oval hamburger patties don’t they? And technically these would make great hamburger patties too! But the one thing that separates these from being a hamburger is that I have officially dubbed these…..meatloaf. So there. 🙂
I don’t make meatloaf very often, but every now and then we just want a big hunk of meat don’t we? These will do just the trick and can be made with whatever level of meat you prefer to buy. You could even use ground turkey or chicken. For these I used 1/2 ground round and 1/2 ground turkey in fact.
With only around 300 calories per mini meatloaf you can’t go wrong! See all of those little specks of cheese in there? Yeah that’s speckled throughout each entire meatloaf along with onions and a surprising twist- reduced fat Ritz crackers. You don’t have to use the brand-name of course. Just whatever you can find cheap or have on-hand.
These are super delicious and incredibly easy too. Even the hubby was satisfied with his hunk of bacon-y and cheesy meat. One of my favorite things about making them mini instead of regular size is that they cooked up faster. I didn’t need the entire 40 minutes to get these finished. Quicker meals mean happier hungry folks!
Recipe from Taste of Home.
Nothing is more comforting than a bacon and cheese meatloaf!
Ingredients
- 4 egg whites
- 1/2 cup crushed reduced-fat Ritz crackers (about 13 crackers)
- 1/3 cup plus 8 teaspoons shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese, divided
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 pound lean ground beef (90% lean)
- 2 turkey bacon strips, cut in half
Method
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a big bowl, combine the egg whites, crackers, 1/3 c. cheese, onion, salt, and pepper. Crumble the beef of that and mix well.
- Shape into 4 small loaves and place on a greased baking dish. Top each with a piece of bacon.
- Bake for 35- 40 minutes or until there is no more pink. Temperature should be 160 degrees. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake for another 2-3 minutes for the cheese to melt.
Notes
I added 1/2 pound of ground turkey and a tad more of the other ingredients so I would end up with 6 meatloaves.
If you have a mini loaf pan, this would be a great time to use it!
In place of the crackers, you could easily use plain bread crumbs if you have them.
And if you have a picky eater, you can leave out the onions.
Question of the day:
Do you make meatloaf frequently?
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