Food In My House: Four Hour Meatloaf

Four hour meatloaf? Are you kidding? This must be some sort of joke. Nope, this is not a joke. I made a delicious, moist and tasty meatloaf today in about 4 hours. Your meatloaf doesn't need to take as long, but if you want it to have the same taste that mine did today, then you'll want to take these steps.

My (give or take) four hour meatloaf started with caramelizing an onion over low and slow heat in a cast iron pan for about two hours. Caramelizing the onion adds a lot of moisture to the loaf and caramelized onions just taste so darn good! I added a bit of honey, cayenne, two cloves of garlic and salt and pepper to my onions to develop that rich taste and finished with worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, tomato paste, and chicken broth to the pan. After my onions cooled for a bit, I mixed them with the meat, eggs and bread crumbs and allowed the mixture to rest in the refrigerator for an hour. I'm not sure if this added to how delicious this loaf was, but that's what I did because I wasn't ready to cook it. The last step I did was to baste the loaf in the oven every 30 minutes and then broiled it with a final layer of glaze for 3 minutes. Are all of these overcomplicated steps necessary for a delicious meatloaf? Probably not, and of course you don't need to caramelize onions or let the meat rest, but that's just what I did and that's what produced an out-of-this world moist meatloaf. Here's the breakdown!

Four Hour Meatloaf

Inspired by Ina Garten's Meatloaf and Abs Diet Sloppy Joes

Caramelized Onions

1 tbsp butter

1 onion diced

1 tbsp honey

Pinch of cayenne

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1/4 cup chicken broth

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Melt the butter in a cast iron pan and add the onions and honey and cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Add the salt and pepper and cayenne. Take off the heat and add the chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce and apple cider vinegar. Let cool for a few moments.

Meat Mixture

2 lbs of ground beef

2 eggs beaten

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Salt and Pepper and cayenne to taste

Caramelized onion mixture

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and pop in the refrigerator for an hour

Glaze

1/2 cup Ketchup

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp mustard

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Meatloaf Assembly

Preheat oven to 350F

Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Put meat mixture on the baking sheet and form into a rectangular loaf. Brush the loaf with the glaze and bake for 60-90 minutes.

Check the temperature after 60 minutes. If your loaf is at 160F congratulations! It's finished.

Let the loaf rest for about 15 minutes, slice it up and enjoy with mashed potatoes, mashed cannelini beans, or your carb of choice, and peas!