Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf: How To Silence Your Resident Food Critics
"Mooooooooommmm, meatloaf again?!"
If your last meatloaf elicited wails of complaints from the less easy-to-please members of your household, fret not. You don't have to give up this oh-so-easy to prepare dish from your weekly rotation. You just need to... hmmm... how shall we put this? Liven things up a bit!
And speaking of easy, remember your old friend bacon? Yeah. It's sort of cheating, but who cares! The end justifies the means. And what a beautiful end this is.
You will need:
- 2¼ lbs ground beef
- 1⅓ cups breadcrumbs
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1/2 tbsp pepper
- 2 eggs
- 7 oz ham
- 5 oz cheese (6 slices)
- 3.5 oz baby spinach
- 14 oz bacon
Here's how:
- Mix the ground beef with breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and eggs.
- Line a baking tray with aluminum foil and press the ground beef mixture into a thin, flat surface. Then add a layer each of ham, cheese, and baby spinach.
- Using the aluminum foil, roll the entire sheet of beef into a giant log, sealing the ends with ground beef so the other ingredients don't seep out during cooking.
- Replacing the aluminum foil flat on the baking tray, cover the entire surface with bacon, overlapping the slices so that the bacon layer forms a continuous sheet. Then place the meatloaf at one end and roll along the bacon, holding the aluminum foil as a guide, until the bacon is wrapped around the entire meatloaf.
- Wrap in aluminum foil and bake at 390 °F for 60 minutes, removing the foil after 30 minutes so that the bacon crisps up nicely.
When the resident food critics see this bacony, cheesy dream on their plates, they won't even notice that you've snuck in some spinach! In fact, from now on, they'll be asking, "Mooooooooommmm, when are you gonna make that meatloaf again?"