16 April 2011


I love Thanksgiving food. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce. Mmmm. But I only make a turkey with all the trimings once a year. So the rest of the year, I like to make meals that mimic Thanksgiving flavors. I call them "Mock Thanksgiving" meals. They combine the foods and/or flavors of Thanksgiving in easy, weeknight-friendly preparations. I have already posted one of these recipes, Spicy Cranberry Chicken. Here is another one of our favorites.

I saw Rachael Ray make mini turkey meatloaves that had her homemade stuffing in them (in place of the breadcrumbs that are usually in meatloaf). I thought that putting stuffing in ground turkey for a meatloaf was a brilliant idea. So I tried her recipe and I had several problems with it. First of all, while I liked the stuffing recipe she provided, there was way too much of it. Not only did the mini meatloaves turn out more stuffing than meat, there were too many of them for one meal (I think we ate them for like 2 days after that!). And it was kind of time-consuming to make the stuffing and then bake the meatloaf. (This wasn't a 30 minute meal; it was on her Cooking Channel show Week in a Day.) And instead of turning out like mini meatloaves, they turned out more like burger patties. In fact, we ate the leftovers on hamburger buns with cranberry sauce as a condiment. That was okay, but I was stuck on the meatloaf idea.

So I took her idea and came up with my own version of turkey meatloaf with stuffing in it. I use a boxed stuffing mix. I love that stuff, and while the regular versions are loaded with salt, I really like Stovetop's reduced sodium chicken variety. Here is the recipe I came up with.

Turkey Stuffing Meatloaf

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground turkey (93/7)
2 eggs, beaten
½ tsp salt
½ tsp poultry seasoning
1½ cups prepared stuffing
⅓ can jellied cranberry sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp dijon mustard

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine turkey, eggs, salt, poultry seasoning, and stuffing. Put into a loaf pan and bake 1 to 1½ hours or until internal temperature reaches 165°.

Meanwhile, heat cranberry sauce, ketchup, and mustard in a small saucepan over low heat until cranberry sauce has melted and no lumps remain.

When meatloaf is done, spread glaze on top and bake an additional 5 minutes.

Makes 8 servings.


Rachael's mini meatloaves didn't include a glaze. I got the idea for this one somewhere online but I can't remember where. It's a Thanksgiving-y spin on the traditional ketchup and brown sugar one.

We love this meatloaf. I serve it with mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans.

Here is a pic of Rachael's mini meatloaves. You can see what I mean about them looking like burgers.


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1 comment:

  1. From Facebook:

    "What a great idea! I have a leftover bag of stuffing in and pantry and may have to give this a try."

    Liz M.

    ReplyDelete