Moist meatloaf with bacon
- Preparation 25 min
- Cooking 2 h 40 min
- Servings 6
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍖 The meatloaf I stopped making the boring way
Everybody’s grandmother had a meatloaf. Mine came out of the oven grey, dense, and it needed a lot of ketchup to be forgiven. I kept the shape and threw out the rest. Thick-cut bacon gets baked first, chopped, and folded right into the mix instead of being draped over the top. Two mustards. A glaze that goes on in two passes. My kids ask for it, which is the only review I trust.
🎃 Spaghetti squash in a meatloaf, and here’s why
Roasted spaghetti squash tastes good and it holds water, and water is the whole battle with ground beef. You can actually taste it in the finished loaf, so this isn’t a hide-the-vegetables trick. One rule though, and it’s the one people break: measure it. One cup of well-drained flesh, no more. Go past that and the mix turns soupy, and a soupy meatloaf will not survive the knife.
🥔 What lands on the table with it
Mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, honey-roasted carrots. Nothing clever, and that’s the point on a Tuesday. The squash needs a full hour in the oven, which is the long part of this recipe, so roast it the night before and it’ll be sitting in the fridge waiting for you.
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🥛 The panade is the whole secret
Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk in a separate bowl and leave them alone for five minutes before anything else touches them. The starch swells, traps the liquid, and holds onto it while the loaf bakes instead of letting the beef squeeze itself dry. Five minutes. That is the difference between a moist meatloaf and the grey brick most of us grew up on, and skipping it is the single most common reason a meatloaf comes out dry.
🎃 Measure the squash. One cup, drained.
Squash is mostly water. One cup of roasted flesh, well drained and pressed lightly after you scrape it, is the ceiling. Dump in more because you happen to have more and the mix goes slack, the loaf sags in the pan, and your slices come apart on the plate.
🥓 Cook the bacon, but stop before crispy
Twenty minutes in the oven, no longer. Bacon that went crispy on the sheet turns to dry splinters once it’s buried in the meat and baked a second time. You want it soft and smoky so it disappears into the loaf and shows up as flavour instead of texture. Note that the bacon here goes inside the mix, not wrapped around the outside, so every slice gets some instead of just the crust.
🌡️ 160 F, and trust the thermometer over the clock
Ground beef is done at 160 F (71 C) in the centre. In a standard loaf pan at 400 F (200 C), that lands around 1 hour 15 minutes, but pan thickness and oven calibration move that number more than anyone admits. Probe the middle, not the end. Every minute past 160 F is juice leaving the building.
🍅 Glaze in two passes, never one
Half the ketchup and brown sugar mixture goes on before the loaf goes in, the other half at the halfway mark. A single coat at the start scorches into something bitter over 75 minutes. Two thinner passes build a glaze that stays glossy and tastes like the glaze you actually wanted.
⏱️ Ten minutes of rest, uncovered
Pull it, leave it in the pan, walk away for ten minutes. The juices settle back into the meat and the structure firms up enough to slice cleanly. With the squash adding moisture, this matters here more than on a plain beef loaf. And leave it uncovered while it bakes, foil traps steam and softens the glaze you just built.
🗓️ Roast the squash the night before
The squash alone is an hour of oven time, which is what turns a weeknight recipe into a project. Roast it the day before, scrape it, drain it and refrigerate it. Next evening the loaf is assembled in about ten minutes. Bonus: it keeps shedding water in the fridge overnight, which is exactly the direction you want it going.
✅ What to serve with meatloaf
At our place it’s the same three things every time: Boursin mashed potatoes, green beans, and honey-roasted carrots. Honestly though, the best meal from this recipe happens the next day: a cold slice between two pieces of bread with a smear of mustard. I make the loaf partly for the sandwich.
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Meatloaf
- 1 cup (250 ml) roasted spaghetti squash flesh, well drained (about 1/2 small squash)
- 13.5 oz (385 g) thick-cut bacon slices
- 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
- 3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 3/4 lb (800 g) medium ground beef
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups (500 ml) breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) milk
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) hot mustard
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) grainy mustard
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) tomato paste
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp (5 ml) salt
- 1 tsp (5 ml) Italian seasoning
- Freshly ground pepper
Glaze
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) ketchup
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) sifted brown sugar
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 425 °F (220 °C). Place the half squash on a baking sheet, cut side up, and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, then bake for 1 hour. Let cool 10 minutes, then scrape out the flesh with a fork. Measure 1 cup (250 ml) of flesh, drain it well and press lightly to remove excess liquid. Transfer to a large bowl. (This step can be done the day before.)
- Reduce the oven to 400 °F (200 °C). Place the bacon slices on a large parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, so it’s cooked but not crispy. Chop roughly and add to the bowl. Leave the oven on.
- In a small bowl, combine the breadcrumbs and the milk. Let sit 5 minutes, until the breadcrumbs absorb all the liquid. This step is what keeps the meatloaf moist.
- In a small pan heated over medium, add the onion and garlic and drizzle with olive oil. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, to soften. Add to the bowl.
- Add the soaked breadcrumbs and the rest of the ingredients, season generously with pepper and mix for 2 minutes with your hands, without overworking the meat.
- Grease a loaf pan, add the mixture and press it down. Set aside.
- In a bowl, combine the sauce ingredients and mix. Spread half the sauce over the top of the meatloaf and place in the oven. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, brushing with the rest of the sauce halfway through, or until a meat thermometer inserted in the center reads 71 °C (160 °F). Let rest 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
160 F (71 C) in the centre, read with a meat thermometer pushed into the thickest part of the loaf, not the end. That’s the food-safe number for ground beef and it’s also the point where the meat is still holding its juice. Push it to 170 F or 175 F and you’ll get a firmer, drier slice for no benefit. Colour is a bad guide here, a meatloaf can look done well before it is and well after it should have come out.
About 1 hour 15 minutes at 400 F (200 C) for a 1 3/4 lb (800 g) loaf in a standard loaf pan, glazed halfway through. A wider free-form loaf on a sheet pan cooks faster, a deep narrow pan slower, so the time is a guideline and the thermometer is the answer. Leave it uncovered the whole way, foil traps steam and the glaze never sets.
Three things, in order of importance. The panade: soak the breadcrumbs in milk five minutes before mixing, so the starch holds liquid through the bake. Restraint: mix with your hands about two minutes and stop, overworked ground beef tightens up like a sausage. And the thermometer: pull it at 160 F (71 C). In this recipe the drained spaghetti squash adds a fourth layer of insurance, but it only works if you measure it at one cup.
Ketchup, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce, which is the classic three and hard to improve on. The ratio here is 1/2 cup (125 ml) ketchup to 2 tbsp (30 ml) sifted brown sugar and 1 tbsp (15 ml) Worcestershire. Brush half on before baking and the rest at the halfway point. Sifting the sugar sounds fussy but lumps of brown sugar melt unevenly and leave dark burnt spots on top.
Usually one of three. Not enough binder, so the eggs and the soaked breadcrumbs have nothing to grip. Too much moisture, which is why the squash gets measured at one well-drained cup and not eyeballed. Or no rest, which is the easiest one to fix: ten minutes out of the oven and the loaf firms up enough to cut clean. Slice with a serrated knife and a sawing motion rather than pressing straight down.
Yes, and it freezes better than most things. Cool it completely first, then freeze it whole or in slices, wrapped tight so the surface doesn’t dry out. Reheat in a low oven, covered, rather than the microwave, which drives out the moisture you spent the whole recipe protecting. Frozen slices also go straight into lunches, and a cold meatloaf sandwich is arguably the point of making a whole loaf.
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