Jen's MexiCali Meatloaf

~~posted by Jen

Mini Meatloaf ready to eat!

I was torturing y'all a couple weeks ago about my discovery of a non-carb binder for meatloaf, remember? I promised to tell you what it was, then Soup Week came along, and the meatloaf recipe got back-burnered.

Well, it was pretty rude of me to leave y'all hanging like that, so I apologize! But I'm making it up to you today!

My first ex-husband absolutely adored meatloaf. Honestly, I had never eaten it before in my life before I married him. His Mom made it with chopped onions, peppers, tomatoes, all the usual stuff.

Now y'all know I am a lazy cook, and I freely admit that. So I thought to myself, "there is no way in hell I am chopping all this crap up and cooking it just to put in meatloaf."

The first time I made it for Brian, I used salsa that I drained the excess liquid from. He didn't know the difference, and even went so far as to say my meatloaf was better than his Mom's. I just smiled and said "thanks for the compliment!"

A few years later, I started substituting ground turkey for half of the ground beef, he never even noticed.

From my original recipe, I tweaked it a bit further to get more protein into it and not have to use bread crumbs or crackers as binder. So I discovered shredded cheese gives you the same texture without the carbs!

I know it sounds weird, but I promise it works! Here's how it's done:

Jen's MexiCali Meatloaf
Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef (I use 85/15 or 90/10)
1 lb ground turkey
1 cup salsa, strained of excess liquid (mild or medium, depending on your preference)
3 eggs (or equivalent Egg Beaters if you prefer)
2 cups finely shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend)
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp Montreal Steak Seasoning
1 packet Goya Sazon Seasoning Mix


Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients until thoroughly blended.  The mixture should still feel moist to the touch but form a ball easily. If it seems too wet, add a bit more cheese to firm it up more. 

Mixed up and ready to bake

Now this step is important, since we can't taste raw meat for seasoning. Take a very small piece of the meat mixture and microwave it for 1 minute. This should cook it through so you can taste for seasoning and adjust according to your tastes.  


Once you've adjusted your seasonings, you're ready to form it into either individual loaves (if using a mini loaf pan) or 1 big loaf. Spray your pan with cooking spray.


Here's a secret to avoiding all that extra grease collecting in the bottom of the pan. Place a piece of bread (stale bread is fine, you're not going to eat it) on the bottom of the pan to line it before you put your meat mixture in.

Sprayed pan lined with bread slices

I learned that trick from Paula Deen, and it totally works. I usually save the end pieces ("heels") of loaves of bread in a big freezer bag in the freezer, then pull them out to use when I make meatloaf. 

Big Meatloaf ready for the oven

Now form the meat mixture into loaf form and place it on top of the bread slices. If individual loaves, bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. A big loaf (side note: I cook my big loaf in a square 9x9 Cake Pan, not a loaf pan) usually takes 45 minutes to an hour at 400, depending on your oven and how big the meatloaf is.

Baking away

Mix about 4-5 tablespoons of salsa with 2-3 tablespoons of ketchup to top the meatloaf with during the last few minutes of cooking, or you can serve the topping sauce on the side. Remove the bread slices from the bottom of the meat before serving. 


I can usually eat 1 individual loaf (1 1/2 on a big pouch day) or a slice of the large loaf. It gets better in the fridge, like anything else with tomatoes in it. Sometimes I use leftover meatloaf instead of ground meat in my Cowboy Soup, and it's delicious!

If you're a bacon fan, add a jar of Hormel Real Bacon Bits and a bit more cheese, omit the Sazon, and you've got Bacon Cheeseburger meatloaf! Play with your food, send us what you come up with, including a pic, and you could be our next Recipe Remix!

Mini Meatloaves just out of the oven

The votes are in...cheeseburgers it is!

Thank you guys for voting! I never thought the response would be so high! No worries to all you cheesecake enthusiasts. I made that today too and took photographs so (God willing) it'll be up tomorrow or Tuesday.

So...cheeseburger soup. Let's just start off with a quick history lesson to how we got to where we are today. Nikki was on the elliptical watching "Diners, drive-ins and dives" (as she often does) and this soup was featured. It sounded like something that could be made with way less calories so I decided to give it a shot.

Just to illustrate how much I love you all...I used beef for this recipe. Actual beef. As in, "Nik's pouch and beef have a sometime-y relationship" beef. But I wanted to stay as true to the recipe as possible. At the end I also give some tips to avoid pitfalls that occurred in the final crafting of this recipe.

Let's get started shall we?

Ok I am restructuring this recipe format a bit because the last organization of it sucked. I got a lot of questions that were in the text (my fault not yours…I’m a writer for goodness sakes I should know better!)


So take two:


Ingredients for the version I made:


1 lb. lean ground beef (I used 93/7...you can use turkey too and the next ingredient is why)

1/2 tsp liquid smoke (I used hickory flavor. Next time maybe mesquite. Both the divas said the final product was slightly "hamish")

6 slices of chopped turkey bacon

1 medium onion, sliced into slivers

1 can low-sodium, low-fat beef broth

1 tablespoon butter OR light butter spread (I used the latter)

1.25 cups shredded mild cheddar cheese

1 can fat-free evaporated milk

2 tbsp flour (whatever kind you used...I used carbalose)

3/4 c. unflavored greek yogurt

2 eggs


salt, pepper, onion powder, paprika

Garnish

diced tomatoes, COLD shredded lettuce



Directions:

In a medium pot that has been sprayed with non-stick, cook turkey bacon until slightly crispy. Add onions and cook until onions are browned nicely. Add beef broth and set on low to simmer.

In a bowl, mix whatever seasonings you'd normally put into a burger plus the liquid smoke and then form the meat into a big ball. In a sprayed pan, place the ball of meat and then mash into a large patty that looks like this:

Once it's completely browned on one side, flip it and let it brown on the other side before breaking it up into chunks as big or small as you'd like. Here's the browned, flipped mass o' meat:

Once everything is browned (and broken up...don't leave the patty whole...that would not be good), add the meat to the pot with the onion/broth mixture. In the same pan that you cooked the meat in, add the butter (or butter spread) and allow it to melt. Add flour and stir into a rue.

Slowly add, evaporated milk, whisking as you go. Let this mixture simmer to a rolling boil before adding cheese then turn the heat down to low. Now this is the MIND NUMBING part but oh so important. Cheese sauce is a low and slow process. Do it too quick and you get gritty sauce. So low and slow. Stay near the pan to stir frequently but don't turn it up. Yes, it will take forever. Yes, this is boring as hell but YES it will be worth it!

As the sauce is starting to thicken up a bit (it will be thinner than you think it should be), crack two eggs into a bowl. Ladle a little of the cheese mixture out and add it to the eggs about a tablespoon at a time. The eggs should get thicker. Whisk them quickly and put THAT mixture back into the cheese mixture. If you are successful...well you've just tempered eggs my friend. Now why did you temper eggs, you may ask? Because the mixture is still too thin and in the interest of this NOT being a complete carb-fest we had to thicken the sauce WITHOUT additional flour. K? If you're nervous about tempering eggs, you can add a bit of cold water to a tablespoon or two of flour and add it slowly into the mixture. (Edited to add: also if you've never tempered eggs before you might want to go the flour route the first time out. But you should know pretty soon into the process if you did it right. If you do it wrong you get egg chunk which is...um...not good...)

Once all that is done, add in the greek yogurt. Again, low and slow people. This is a lot of dairy going on and LOTS of room for curdling. Batch #1 had some curd action going on. Tasted great. Didn't feel so great though. The purpose of the yogurt is to further thicken AND to add more protein! This doesn't look terribly exciting but here's my cheese sauce in progress:

So after you've stirred the cheese sauce for about half an eternity, it should be smooth and creamy. Mine never achieves shinyness (I think there is oil involved in getting it shiny). It's now ready to go with the meat/onion/bacon/broth mixture. Pour it in and set the pot on low. Allow it to simmer about 30 minutes or so. Unless the liquid gets low you can leave the top off the pot so that the liquid can reduce.

And once that's done you're good to go. Staying true to the original I did add the tomato and lettuce but I couldn't bring myself to put it in the soup so I garnished. For two reasons. #1 in batch 1 the tomatoes ended up cooking on the reheat and that totally took away from the burger feel of the thing. And #2 not everyone is going to buy into the idea so it's an easier sell all around if you put it on the side and let folks add what they want.

Having said that...the tomatoes are essential. The lettuce, in my estimation is not. Although if you use cold, crisp lettuce it is a very nice compliment. Also, in batches 1 and 2 I simply used meat without liquid smoke. And it didn't taste like a burger. It tasted like meat and cheese. Which is very different. So I would invest in a bottle if you don't already have one in your pantry. And again, I cannot stress enough how important it is to go slow with the cheese sauce. If you have a better method for making cheese sauce: a) by all means use it and b) please let me know. Cheese sauce is ALWAYS a thorn in my side!

Here is the final product:

I had to change batteries in my camera and just that quick the lettuce began to wilt. So you can see why adding it should be the absolute last step!!!

The divas like it although, as I said, I got heavy handed with the liquid smoke (the above recipe is adjusted down to accommodate).

I don't have stats on this just yet. I will say it is fairly caloric and I wouldn't make this as a regular meal but it is a nifty way to get over the cheeseburger hump if you are just starting out or if, like me, you can't manage a whole cheeseburger no matter how hard you try!

Anyway...cheese-a-palooza continues with our cheesecake soon...