I’m not not a fan of meatloaf, per se; it’s just that it’s never been my top choice or something I’ve even thought about making. To me, meatloaf is something my mom cooked on rare occasions, or a dish I might order at a diner, compelled by a heady feeling of Americana-tinged nostalgia. Whenever I eat meatloaf I remember that I like it, and then forget about it for a few years. This agnosticism turned out to be helpful for the purpose of comparing meatloaf recipes. I brought no biases to my process and only one question: Is any recipe good enough to finally make me a meatloaf fan?
As usual, I chose from some of the internet’s leading meatloaf recipes, opting for those that vary in technique and makeup. Most meatloaf recipes use eggs, which bind the loaf and provide structure, but beyond that there’s a lot of variability. A lot of recipes include bread, for example, but in different formats: crumbled sandwich bread, store-bought breadcrumbs, even moistened chunks of bread (a technique known as a panade). Some recipes add milk, or a mix of different meat types. What, I wondered, would actually matter?
For the purposes of testing, I opted for meatloaf recipes that use a tomato-based sauce as opposed to brown gravy since I’ve encountered more of the former than the latter. I also kept the choices fairly traditional (no nut loaf here) — save for one irreverent outlier. And while certain recipes suggested serving the meatloaf with sides, I ate each on its own so that a particularly good pairing wouldn’t color my opinion of the entire loaf.
Valentina Ablaev, Natasha’s Kitchen
Google “meatloaf recipe” and this one from Natasha’s Kitchen is among the first that comes up; it’s highly endorsed with over 8,700 ratings. Even at a glance, the recipe’s popularity makes sense: It’s simple, fast, and unfussy — so long as there’s beef in the fridge, most people can likely make this recipe with what’s in the pantry. Nothing needs to be cooked for the prep; the ingredients are just chopped and mixed together in a bowl, which also makes this recipe pretty weeknight-friendly. Breadcrumbs and milk are used for texture and binding, and use of ketchup in both the meat and sauce builds flavor. The latter is brushed onto the loaf once it’s mostly cooked but before it’s baked for its final 20 minutes.
I liked making this meatloaf. There’s not much else to say, since it was very easy. Eating it was easy, too: This is a stereotypical meatloaf, one evocative of TV dinners, the 1950s, and, as my dining partner noted, a traditional diner — it just about begged to be served with buttery mashed potatoes. The meat was moist and held together well, and its flavor was uncomplicated. Though my dining partner and I generally liked the balance between the beef and the sauce, we both hoped for slightly more flavor, either in the form of seasonings like garlic or onion powder or even just a little more salt — the recipe, as written, calls for salt, Italian seasoning, paprika, and a little pepper. Regardless, the glaze was a good reminder of why ketchup is such a useful ingredient — cooked down, it provides unexpectedly interesting depth. All in all, I’d call this a good, go-to meatloaf recipe for anyone, just about anytime.
J. Kenji López-Alt, Serious Eats
For Serious Eats, J. Kenji López-Alt takes his usual tack of using science to make the most optimized version of a dish. His goal here is the best meatloaf, not necessarily the easiest or simplest. To that end, López-Alt calls for both beef and pork: beef for flavor and pork for texture, since, as he explains, beef alone becomes drier and more grainy when it cooks. To that, López-Alt adds gelatin, which helps the meat retain moisture; buttermilk and chicken stock, which contribute moisture and flavor; breadcrumbs, which keep the meat tender; and mushrooms, which add flavor and also prevent the meat from going tough. For even more flavor, López-Alt includes anchovies, Marmite, soy sauce, aromatics, parsley, and cheddar.
Unsurprisingly, this recipe is on the tedious end of the meatloaf spectrum. A few things raised immediate flags of fussiness for me. For one, there’s all those ingredients. Some of them are very specific (though I am luckily a person who keeps Marmite on hand), and some are used in quantities that are annoyingly small relative to their package size — just three anchovies, for example, and most but not all of a standard package of pork. The recipe also calls for a food processor; since I don’t have one, I settled for chopping everything finely by hand.
Then, there is the process. First, you make a mixture of bread and mushrooms. Next, you make a finely chopped blend of vegetables, which is cooked in a pan along with a mixture of gelatin, buttermilk, and chicken stock. You add all of these ingredients to a bowl along with the meat, eggs, and cheese. Then you form it in a loaf pan, cover it with foil, invert it onto a sheet pan, loosen up the foil so it catches the juices, and then bake the meatloaf twice, removing the sheet pan in between the two rounds. After that, you turn up the oven, brush the loaf with glaze, bake it again, and repeat this two more times. López-Alt advises that you might end up with more mixture than fits in the pan, in which case you should cook the extra alongside the larger loaf. I used it to fill about a quarter of another loaf pan and cooked it the same way.
More than any of the other meatloaf recipes I tried, López-Alt’s necessitated the question: Is it worth it? I was pleasantly surprised, because it’s quite good. Although you’ll want to be well-organized going into the recipe and reread it, the steps are specific but not hard. The combination of cheddar, anchovies, and mushrooms made the meatloaf savory like a good cheeseburger, while the glaze — which is just ketchup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and pepper — balanced the other flavors well, and the rounds of brushing and baking added caramelization that kept it from being boring.
Despite all the binders, this meatloaf crumbled more than I expected, though this posed more of a challenge for taking photos than for eating. The texture was nice and light, and the meat remained moist. The biggest surprise was that I actually preferred the thinner meatloaf I’d made with the extra meat since it wasn’t as crumbly and the flavors seemed more concentrated. Maybe it’s unconventional, but in the future, I’d experiment with portioning out the meat into two thinner meatloaves as opposed to one thick loaf with the leftovers baked on the side. I’d recommend this recipe, especially for project-oriented cooks and people who like a classic meatloaf but want a slight upgrade.
Deb Perelman, Smitten Kitchen
I appreciate Deb Perelman’s honesty. She approaches the task of developing a meatloaf recipe with skepticism towards the entire concept: as she writes, “I set out to address what I found so off-putting about meatloaf.” For her, the problem comes down more to format than flavors — since meatloaf is essentially a giant meatball (as a Smitten Kitchen reader pointed out to Perelman), why not lean into that?
Perelman’s resulting mini “meatloaves” are really meatballs with meatloaf flavor. They’re made with a process that falls right between those used in the Natasha’s Kitchen and Serious Eats recipes. Perelman calls for turning sandwich bread into breadcrumbs and cooking down finely chopped aromatics, then adding them to ground beef with milk and eggs. She takes the result and forms it into large balls, then glazes each one not with ketchup, which she finds too thin on meatloaf, but tomato paste mixed with Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, and honey. (The meat is also flavored with some of these elements.) Since each of these meatloaves falls on the small side you’re directed to cook them for a relatively quick 20 to 25 minutes, though I found that I had to add another 15 or so to hit the right internal temperature.
Upon first bite, this meatloaf made my brain do a double take: its appearance made me expect red-sauce restaurant meatballs, but I tasted nearly classic meatloaf. I say nearly because while the honey provided a mild sweetness and the Dijon added zing, I found myself missing the sweetness of ketchup, as well as its jellied shine. That said, this is a great glaze for people who either don’t like ketchup or find a ketchup-based glaze too sweet.
My dining partner and I both enjoyed this meatloaf’s clearly Worcester-enhanced depth, though we agreed that the form factor affected our experience. Whether this improves meatloaf or makes you slightly disappointed in your meatballs comes down to personal preference. This is definitely the recipe for people who either find meatloaf too cloying and one-note, or people who, like Perelman, find a slice of compressed ground meat unsettling. Most people, I imagine, won’t argue with a giant meatball. Since it yields so many distinct portions, this recipe seems especially well-suited for a big party with a buffet table.
Molly Baz, Reprinted in Epicurious
Molly Baz’s meatloaf recipe leans even more contrarian than Perelman’s: It’s essentially a log of Italian sausage that’s seasoned with grated Parm and interspersed with mozzarella. The recipe relies on a panade, for which Baz calls for French bread that’s been soaked in water and wrung out. This is mixed into the sausage, presumably to keep the texture of the meatloaf tender. After the loaf is baked, Baz directs you to cut it and sear each slice on both sides until they’re crispy and browned and any pockets of mozzarella turn gooey.
In terms of effort, Baz’s recipe is pretty easy. I did find, however, that it took a little more work than I expected to get the large, three-inch pieces of torn bread evenly worked into the meat (this was especially true for the ends of the French bread, which remained somewhat tough even after being soaked in water). In the future, I’d likely tear or cut them into even smaller pieces in order for them to combine more easily. And while Baz doesn’t call for setting the loaf pan on top of a sheet tray to bake, I think it would be a mistake not to, especially once you get to poking the meatloaf with a thermometer. I learned this the hard way: The runoff made a hard-to-clean mess at the bottom of my oven. Speaking of my oven, I found that this recipe required 30 more minutes of cooking than what Baz specified.
This was a good meatloaf, albeit a bit too rich for my tastes. This was clear as soon as it came out of the oven: The meatloaf was oily and pale, though it looks good once it’s sliced and seared. The crispy crust adds an awe factor, as well texture on each slice. Still, since it’s all Italian sausage, I found this meatloaf relentlessly savory and rich, especially with the added saltiness and oiliness of the cheese. The texture was dense, like a sausage; given that the bread was supposed to add some lightness, I can’t imagine what the result would have been without it.
Baz’s recipe includes a lemony arugula to serve on the side; it is, she writes, “simply not optional,” and I’m inclined to agree. I found myself begging for brightness and even imagining the benefits of adding some fennel to the sausage mix. Ultimately, I think meatloaf should beget a meatloaf sandwich the next day, but I found this one so rich that I wasn’t sure I’d want more so soon. I’d be more inclined to make this dish for a large group, since one slice is more than enough to satisfy.
In any case, Baz’s is definitely the meatloaf to make if you hate traditional meatloaf, want to be contrarian, or just really like Italian sausage.
Winner: Natasha’s Kitchen’s Meatloaf Recipe With the Best Glaze
I’m no longer a meatloaf agnostic: I like it, though after making so many in such quick succession, I’m not going to act on my new appreciation anytime soon. And after trying so much meatloaf, I have to conclude that the classics are classic for a reason. I imagine that if you have a meatloaf craving, the Natasha’s Kitchen version is what you’re looking for — it’s the meatloaf you’d eat at a diner, or out of a TV dinner. Of course, those fancier and fussier meatloaves were delicious, but to me, they didn’t evoke the same kind of nostalgia. In this sense, and in terms of the ratio between effort and results, I think this recipe is likely to be the most satisfying for most people.
