Mini Italian Meatloaf

Sometimes the tastiest dish are born from using up what you have on hand, this is one of those dishes. I had half a pound each of ground beef & Italian sausage plus some roasted red peppers lingering in the fridge that needed to be used. We like to make our meatloaf with different ground meats so I thought why not use the Italian sausage & play on those flavors.

Boy, did these ever taste good! Matt wasn't so sure about the red peppers but they added great flavor & were't overpowering at all. I especially liked the glaze of ketchup & red wine on top with a little bit of grated Parmesan. The bacon wrapped around each meatloaf looked really great plus added a nice smokey/saltiness.

I was worried a pound of meat wouldn't be enough to fill one of our loaf pans so I made mini meatloaves in muffin tins. This actually ended up being a good way for us to control our portion size to about 3 oz of meat per serving. We each ate one for dinner & the remaining four will make nice sandwiches on some homemade oatmeal bread.

You can skip the bacon if you want. We actually made two without it but, found that the ones with bacon around them came out from the muffin tins much easier.

Mini Italian Meatloaf

1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c roasted red pepper, chopped
1 t dried basil
1/2 t dried oregano
pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1 egg
salt & pepper
1/2 c bread crumbs
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb Italian sausage
6 slices bacon (you can do this with just 4 strips. Cut them to fit the tins & use the leftover pieces to got around the last two tins)
2 T ketchup
1 T red wine
grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Put the onion, garlic, red pepper, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes and egg in a bowl. Beat lightly with a fork. Season with salt & pepper. Mix in the bread crumbs. Add the meat & use your hands to mix together being careful not to work the meat too much.

Grease or spray 6 muffin tins. Place a slice a bacon around the side of each muffin tin. Add the meatloaf mixture in the middle of the bacon filling the tins to the top.

Place the muffin tray on a baking tray to protect your oven from drips. Bake for 30 minutes.

Whisk the ketchup & wine together & brush on the top each meatloaf. Then sprinkle with grated Parmesan. Bake for another 10 minutes. Let sit 5 - 10 minutes before serving.

6 servings.

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