Best Homemade Meatloaf | Tender, Moist, and Full of Flavor

Hey, welcome back everybody. And guess what? You know what I'm making? We making a real good meatloaf. Let's get it. All right. So, what I did was I cleared my, you know, my workstation off, right? I got my bell peppers right here. I've already diced down my onions. Right. So, first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and hit bake cuz we want to preheat. Right. We going to use 375. Right. We hit this start. And there we have it. Real simple. Now, I'm going to go ahead and start cutting these, you know, my veggies down. Now, I wanted to show you guys. You see how I save this? I'm going to show you in just one second. Come over here. This is all good bell pepper. When I have enough of these, I use these in the recipe. You see what I'm saying? [Music] All right. So, now I put a little medium flame underneath the bottom of this. You guys can use butter or uh what I'm using is an olive oil. Listen, this is an infused olive oil. This time I went with just full scallion. I usually use scallion or I use u garlic infused. You know, either one of those. But right now, I just put this in here. Let me build up a little heat. And then what we going to do is we're going to start with our onions and then our bell peppers. We just want to get them like translucent. All right, this is hot enough. Now we just go ahead and start with our onions. Now you guys can put them in all together. That's fine. But for me, something about the onion, it tells me that it needs to just go a little bit further. You know what I mean? So I start there. All right. So, onions get about a 60-second head start. Right now, I'mma come with my bell peppers now. We on our way to being translucent, they starting to soften up. I like the feel of these right now. Actually, just as a little tip, if you guys are paying attention, paying attention, you know what you're doing. As you moving this around, you can just feel on top of your veggies. You know what I mean? It is starting to soften up. It's just a different feel to it. Yes. Yes. So that's what we want, right? So I'm going to let this go maybe for about another one maybe about another minute. Try to get everything down concentrated towards the heat. Right? Not stir it, nothing else. Right? Now after one more minute, then we going to go ahead and put our garlic in. Now once it looks like this, remember we want to be translucent, soft, and all of that. I'm adding my minced garlic. I'll put it on top so I don't have to worry about burning. Now I'm going to look at my fire. Make sure I'm still at medium, which I am. And now we just go ahead and give this a a whirl. Now listen, when we moving this around and that heat hits it, listen, it's going to kick back some aromatics. That's just going to make everybody in your household, you know, extremely happy cuz they know something is happening. So now I'm going to turn my fire off right now, right? We just move this around. Let it absorb some of that. Actually, oh, I forgot to tell you guys. You guys didn't see this. I added a little bit of butter to it. You know what I mean? Just put a quarter I mean a tablespoon of butter in here. Also, if you guys are watching your salt intake, you guys can use, you know, unsalted butter. I went ahead and did a a salted butter. You know what I mean? Turned everything off. Look at this right here. I wish you guys can smell it. All right. So, notice what I did now. Remember, I had all my ingredients lined out. Listen. Now, I grabbed my crackers and I got my milk. Right. What we going to do is we're going to put our milk in here. But, I'm going to go ahead and just break these up. In actuality, you ain't got to do this because once we put this milk in here, it's going to get nice and soft anyway. So, what we want to do is just put this in here. I'm going to set this off to the side. Usually takes about five, six minutes, you know what I mean, for this to like thicken up the way I want it to be. This right here, you guys going to like this little step right here. Right. So, go here, add this. Right [Music] now, I'm going just come here, just mix this up, and we're going to let the crackers just go ahead and absorb, you know, the milk, right? All right. So, notice what I did. I pulled everything up here that's getting ready to go in here in the meat, right? And then, for you guys want to know what it look like once you get everything, you know, once your crackers have absorbed all of the milk, this is what you get. This is going to help with the binding and all of that, too. and give it just a I'm going to I'mma wait let you guys make it and then it's gonna be fire. All right. So, first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start with my that'll be my eggs, right? And then the rest of these ingredients that you see I have right here. Let me make sure I clean my hands off with that egg. Everything just goes in here on the inside. I didn't measure out my black, you know, my black pepper. I'm going put about a tablespoon in here all together. You know what I mean? So, you just want to start adding all your ingredients to it. [Music] So, once we got everything in here, you know, this is just all your ingredients. You got to get in there and you got to work this with your hands, folks. There's no other way I'm going to be able to tell you guys how to do it. So, that mean that egg that's in there, you know what I mean? We got to get in there. Then, we don't want to overwork it. You know what I mean? So, we just want to make sure that we get everything incorporated. You'll be able to see it by just looking at the uh ground beef, you know what I mean? But main thing is you don't want to just compact it. I kind of like just fold it over. Keep doing that. Making sure that egg gets everywhere. You know what I mean? Cuz that's going to bring us some of that moisture and all of that. Now, once I got it halfway, I'm about halfway done, right? What I want to do is it's going to get a little messy, but I just want to add, you know, my mixture. This is my milk and my cracker mixture. Right [Music] now we have that in there. Now we start to work that in also. Now once we got that worked in, the other half of the other will be good. Right? It should be nice moist. Look at that right there. Once we put this in the oven, folks, when I tell you it's going to be good, I mean really, really good. [Music] Now, we got it like that. Last but not least, our veggies. And you guys can put it all in there. I like to do it in these stages right here. I can tell you this way we don't have no failure with your complete success. Look at that right there. Remember all those flavors that we put together and how they cook together. Even the the butter and the scallion, you know, olive oil, all of that. Ah, yeah. Now look at it. Now remember, we don't want to overwork it. Now, don't that look like meatloaf? Okay. Now, once you have everything combined like you like I have, as you guys can see right here, right? Remember, we don't want to just over work this. We don't want nothing to be too if it becomes too dense, you know what I mean? Uh it just be no bueno. It'll be dense when you uh taste it, you hit it with a fork, we want it to still be moist, all of that, right? So, what I have right here is a baking sheet. I got a rubber, you know, one of these mats on here. Listen, those who doing dishes, you guys will love these cuz listen, nothing sticks to this. You guys can put cookies on here, all that. You can see that this has been with me for a few years and this, you can just see it's got his battle scars on it, right? And it's going to be perfect for us to make. Check it out. This meatloaf. Now, what we going to do is we going to shape this. Now, if you guys got a meatloaf pan, that'll be good, too. You know what I mean? But for me, I'm going to go ahead and just get it like this, right? And we just want to form this into the shape of how we want to cut this. Right? It's real simple. I do have a meatloaf pan. I'm going to make another Cajun version of this, you know what I mean? Uh, but that'll be later on, you know, in, you know, this year. I'll do it before the holiday, I think. You know what I mean? Uh, but this is how I like to get it nice and smooth. I like to see my veggies on top. Don't forget, we we sauté those and got those right. Just look at this right now. Real easy to do, you know what I mean? I say intermediate cuz it's a lot of steps, you know what I mean? But really, this to me is like a beginner's recipe. These are what you call confidence builders, right? So, you see that right there. Ah, yeah. Whatever you want your meatloaf to look like, this is how you shape it now. Right. Nice soft, man. That rich and that milk. Look at that, folks. All right. So, now we going to go ahead and make our topping. Right. This is where we going to get our sweetness from. We going to get a little bit of just a little bit of heat from this chili sauce right here, but we going to use half of it on top. Put that in the oven and then the other half when it gets done. Right. So, I'm going to get my chili sauce. Notice I got a spatula right here cuz I want to get all of this in here. You guys look at that. Almost look like marmalade, huh? This stuff right here is good. If y'all don't have this, listen, please run out and get some. You need to have this. It makes a great dipping sauce. Things like of that nature, right? Now, I'm getting ready to come with my Look how moist that is over here. Nothing like having fresh brown sugar. Look at that. Wait. Then I'mma come with my ketchup. That's a lot of things you can do with this. I want you guys to let me know down in the comment section below. What would you do? You know what I mean? Uh to do something. You see these ingredients, but I like to everything to start off, especially when it come to meatloaf. You got to have that ketchup base. You know what I mean? It's nothing like that flavor. All right. And last, get yourself a whisk. And then we want to incorporate it all together. chili sauce, brown sugar, and the ketchup. Yes, sir. Look at that. I'm going to tell you something else. This make a great like if you guys make any type of uh egg rolls. Hello. All right. So, we mixed up. We good here. Right now, we want to go ahead and coat this. I'm going to probably try to use at least half of this on the top. Let me go ahead and get this so you guys can see it, you know, a little better. Right. So, I got my brush here. Just come over here to the top. Let's just go ahead and get some of this on here first. And what we want to do is we want to bake this this on here. Right. But you guys can just see how it's coming. Mhm. Hey, and then I don't know how, you know, everybody brain works. I don't know what these flavors taste like, you know, just individually. But the combination of these together, when I tell you it's fire, that's exactly what I mean, folks. Fire. This glaze right here going to be everything. This will be something you guys will keep in your pantry covered or wherever you keep your ingredients at, you know, I mean, your canned goods and all of that, you'll have this always on deck cuz anytime you you looking for something to dip, you going to whip some of this up. This would be in the refrigerator in the Tupperware. Okay. So, as you guys can see when you look at that right there, you should have a masterpiece right now, right? But we want to put this in the oven. And typically, it takes about an hour for it to be ready, right? So, by using that general thumb, and then we going to check it with a meat thermometer. Let me move my trash can. I'm going to stick this in the oven. We already preheated to 375, right? But we going to set a timer for 30 minutes. Why? Cuz we want to bake this on the top. And then we going to bring it out, put some more back in there, and then finish it up for the remainder. All right. So, let's put this in here like that. Close this up. Now, we set a timer. 30 minutes. See you in a minute. Okay. So, look. We done took it out of the oven. It's said it was at 168. You know what I mean? So, when I stick this in here, this is what you guys going to want to have right now. You know what I mean? Uh 167. It's starting to cool, but it's going to take a minute. Now, when you have something as moist as this is right here, you know what I mean? You want to let this rest, right? So, and you want it to stay firm that way when you cut these. So, I'm going to say you want to let this rest for at least about 25 minutes. You know what I mean? Uh, that's just my own personal. Now, to be honest with you, listen, I already got some uh potatoes. I made me some mashed potatoes and I got me some uh green beans. So, listen, you like to serve everything hot, right? So, a 10-minute rest for you guys. You know what I mean? Then carefully just go ahead and cut this and then you lay your slices on there. And don't forget, if you guys are uh lucky enough to have some leftovers, don't forget about that meatloaf sandwich. Now, I'm going to let this sit up. But before I do, I'mma add some of this to it. Oh my goodness. Okay, so look, you guys can look if you look at take a look at this right here. I cut myself three slices, you know, off of it. And I promise you, it didn't last as long as I thought it would. But at least I got myself a plate out of this. If you guys want to make something like this, super moist. Listen, I'm not going to over talk it or nothing like that. I'm just going to hit y'all with this. Cheers, y'all. Oh, man. Moist. You know what I mean? I like to get a little I don't know how y'all do it, you know what I mean? But I got to get a little bit of that mashed potato on there, too. You know what I mean? So, cheers, y'all. This is it right here. You want to talk about something that ties it all together is really this sauce that's on the top. This is the definition of sweet and savory with just a hint, you know, with a little bit of heat. Now, once you guys try this, let me know what you think. And then tell me what would you do to add to this, if add anything to it to make it better or to make it your own. Now, meatloaf, we got the sauce. You talk to me down at the bottom. I'm telling you, this right here is fire. Now, listen. If you're new to my channel, let me take this time to say thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to like, smash that subscribe button, and tell everybody out there. There's a channel out here that's simplifying these recipes and taking the mystery out of cooking. And you know what I'm about to do, folks. I'm about to have a early dinner. And guess what? I'm out. Peace. [Music]