Meatloaf has an image problem, and most of it is deserved. Too many of them are grey, dense and seasoned with whatever was nearest the stove. This one is built to taste like a cheeseburger, because that is a flavour everybody at the table already agrees on.
HAAAAAM-Burger does the seasoning in one move — it goes through the beef, and a last half teaspoon goes into the ketchup glaze, so the top and the middle taste like the same dish. Crisp bacon is crumbled through the mix rather than draped over the outside, where it usually goes limp, and a log of sharp cheddar is sealed down the centre so the first slice opens onto a molten middle.
It bakes free-form on a sheet pan instead of in a loaf tin, which is the small change that browns all four sides instead of steaming them. Twenty minutes of work, an hour in the oven, and ten minutes of resting that you should not skip.
Serve it with collards or roasted sweet potatoes, both at their best in the Carolinas right now, and make the big version — the cold slices on a toasted bun the next day are the real prize.
Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf with HAAAAAM-Burger
Two pounds of ground beef seasoned with HAAAAAM-Burger organic burger blend, crumbled bacon through the mix and a log of sharp cheddar sealed in the middle, baked free-form on a sheet pan under a ketchup glaze.
Ingredients
For the loaf
- 2 lbs ground beef, 80/20
- 4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled, plus 1 Tbsp of the rendered fat
- 2 Tbsp HAAAAAM-Burger organic hamburger and french fry seasoning
- 2/3 cup panko or plain breadcrumbs
- 1/3 cup whole milk
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 small yellow onion, grated on the large holes of a box grater
- 2 Tbsp ketchup
- 4 oz sharp cheddar, cut into a 1/2-inch log or small cubes
For the glaze
- 1/3 cup ketchup
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp yellow mustard
- 1/2 tsp HAAAAAM-Burger, to finish
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 375°F and line a sheet pan with parchment or foil. Bake this one free-form on a flat pan rather than in a loaf tin: a loaf tin holds the rendered fat against the sides and steams them pale, while a sheet pan lets all four sides brown and the glaze set.
- Cook the bacon until crisp, lift it onto paper towels and crumble it once it has cooled. Keep one tablespoon of the fat from the pan and pour the rest away.
- Stir the breadcrumbs into the milk in a large bowl and leave them alone for 5 minutes, until the milk is fully taken up and the crumbs look like a thick paste. This is the single step that decides whether the loaf slices or crumbles.
- Grate the half onion on the large holes of a box grater straight into the bowl, juice and all. Grated onion melts into the meat as it bakes; diced onion stays as raw crunch in the middle of a slice.
- Add the eggs, the 2 tablespoons of HAAAAAM-Burger, the 2 tablespoons of ketchup, the crumbled bacon and the reserved bacon fat. Mix with a fork until it looks even, so the seasoning is distributed before the beef goes anywhere near it.
- Add the ground beef and mix with your hands only until it comes together, about 30 seconds. Overworked beef bakes dense and springy, closer to a sausage than a meatloaf, and there is no fixing it later.
- Pat half the mixture out on the sheet pan into a flat oval about 9 inches long. Lay the cheddar log down the centre, then mould the rest of the meat over and around it and pinch every seam shut. Any gap is where the cheese escapes and burns onto the pan.
- Bake for 35 minutes. While it bakes, whisk the ketchup, brown sugar, mustard and the last 1/2 teaspoon of HAAAAAM-Burger together for the glaze.
- Brush the glaze over the top and sides and return the loaf to the oven for 20 to 25 minutes more, until a thermometer pushed into the meat — not the cheese pocket, which runs hotter — reads 160°F.
- Rest the loaf on the pan for a full 10 minutes before you cut it. Cut it straight out of the oven and the juices run out onto the board and the cheese floods the plate. Ten minutes and it slices clean.
The panade, and why meatloaf falls apart without it
Breadcrumbs soaked in milk make what cooks call a panade. The starch holds on to moisture that would otherwise cook out of the beef, and it gets between the meat proteins so they cannot tighten into a rubbery block. Dry breadcrumbs tipped straight into the bowl do the opposite — they pull moisture out of the meat. Five minutes of soaking is the whole job, and it is the difference between a loaf that slices and one that collapses into the glaze.
Sealing the cheese in
Cut the cheddar into one log rather than scattering cubes through the mix. Scattered cubes melt into pockets that leak out through the sides, and what is left behind are holes that make the slices fall apart. One log down the middle, fully covered and the seams pinched, gives you a clean molten centre when you cut into it. Sharp cheddar is worth buying over mild here: it is doing all of the cheeseburger work in one place.
Where the hour and a half goes
Twenty minutes of prep is cooking and crumbling the bacon, soaking the crumbs, grating the onion and shaping the loaf. The hour of cooking is 35 minutes before the glaze and 20 to 25 after it. The last 10 minutes is the rest, which is not optional. Twenty plus sixty plus ten is an hour and a half, and almost all of it is the oven working without you.
On the salt, and on the beef
There is no salt in the ingredient list on purpose. Sea salt is the first thing on the HAAAAAM-Burger label, so two tablespoons through two pounds of beef has it seasoned. Taste the glaze before you brush it and decide from there. On the beef: use 80/20. Ground chuck at 85/15 works, but 93/7 makes a dry loaf no panade can rescue, because the fat is what bastes it from the inside for an hour. If you cook salt-free at your table, Zilch. Nada. None. is the blend built for that and this is not it.
What is in season right now
The onion in the mix is out of the fall harvest and will keep in the pantry all winter. Alongside the loaf, collards have had their first cool nights across the Carolinas and gone sweet — a pan of them braised down while the meatloaf bakes costs nothing but the pan. The North Carolina sweet potato harvest is in, and sweet potatoes cut into wedges, tossed with a little HAAAAAM-Burger and roasted on a second sheet pan go in at the same temperature and come out at the same moment. Fall cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower are coming into the markets now and all three roast the same way.
Feeding more people, and the day after
Two loaves fit on one sheet pan if you leave a hand's width between them, and the timing does not change — it is the thickness of each loaf that sets the clock, not how many are in the oven. That is the version for a full table. For the day after, the slices are better than the first night: lay a cold slice on a toasted bun with another slice of cheddar and a spoonful of the glaze and you have the meatloaf burger, which is the reason to make the big one.
What is in the pouch
HAAAAAM-Burger is our USDA Certified Organic hamburger and french fry blend, built on sea salt, organic onion and garlic and black pepper. No MSG, no fillers and no anti-caking agents, made in small batches by our family. It comes in a 5 oz resealable pouch that lies flat in the cupboard and opens one-handed, which matters when your hands are in two pounds of ground beef.
The seasoning itself is gluten free and kosher. This dish is not gluten free — the panko or breadcrumbs in the loaf are wheat, and most ketchups and the bacon cure are worth reading the label on too. If you need the dish gluten free, a gluten-free panko swaps in one for one and the panade behaves the same way.
More to put beside it
For the same blend on a griddle, Skillet Patty Melt and Easy Smash Burger Sliders are the fast versions of this idea, and Baked Cheeseburger Sliders is the one for a crowd. One-Pot Cheeseburger Mac and Cheeseburger Stuffed Baked Potatoes are where leftover slices want to go, and Bacon Cheeseburger Quesadillas covers the bacon-and-cheddar end of it.
On the plate beside the loaf, Crispy Oven Fries with Burger Sauce is the obvious one and The OG Mashed Potatoes is the one people actually ask for.