Our Moms' Meatloaf
Meatloaf is a wonderful thing. Everyone has a recipe, but not everyone's recipe suits our taste; many are too dense in texture, or have unexpected tastes from unexpected herbs and other ingredients that catch our mouths off guard. Some people insist that they know what makes the "best" meatloaf. I refuse to claim that our version is the "best", but I will say that
- This meatloaf tastes to us the way we want meatloaf to taste, and
- The texture is the texture we want our meatloaf to have.
Not surprisingly, this is meatloaf from our childhoods and that's the taste we were looking for. It may not be exactly that taste or those ingredients, but it suits our nostalgic memories of how that meatloaf tasted. Because our mothers' did, we use only ground beef. From there we experimented with putting in those things we remember our moms' putting in, and we ended up with just what we were looking for.
Frankly, I suspect that the main contributors here are using only ground beef, and that with some fat in it; some dry extender to soak stuff up and keep the texture loose, for which oats are admirably suited; and something liquid to contribute the right glopiness and something for the extender to soak up, for which we like the taste of tomato sauce. Working within those parameters I think there are probably any number of variations that we'd also find quite agreeable, but I'm pretty clear that I don't want, e.g., sage to appear anywhere near our meatloaf, and much as we like garlic we don't know that we want that in this meatloaf either. Tomato gravy would be nice, but we find it very satisfying to serve with ketchup added liberally at the table.
Now, so I don't forget again or wonder what I've forgotten next time, here is our version of:
Our Moms' Meatloaf
- 2 lbs ground beef (80%/20% fat is our preferred)
- 1 chopped white or yellow onion
- 1 cup oats, more or less
- 1, 14.5 oz can tomato sauce
- 1 egg
- 1 packet dried onion-soup mix
- several dashes Worcestershire sauce
- Mix everything together moderately well.
- Put in a loaf pan or 2.5 Qt casserole dish.
- Bake uncovered at 350
F for about an hour.