Zucchini Meatloaf Minis
Patricia @ ButterYum
It's late summer and either your garden is overflowing with zucchini, or your friends and family's gardens are overflowing with zucchini and they're begging you to take some off their hands, or they're sneaking some into your car, or they're leaving some at your front door, etc, etc. Right? So here's a great recipe that will help you use up some of that bounty. These mini zucchini meatloaves are so moist and tasty, and because they're so small, the oven won't be on long enough to heat up the house. I like to make a double batch so we have leftovers in the fridge to snack on. We pop them in the microwave for about a minute and that's that. Great for the kid's lunch box too.
You can mix the ingredients by hand, but I like to mix them in my stand mixer using the dough hook attachment. It mixes everything together so quickly and evenly.
This recipe makes 10 mini meatloaves - I made a double batch so that's why you see all 12 indentations filled. If I had made a single batch, I would have left the two cups in the center empty. By the way, these commercial quality USA Pans are totally awesome.
Are you a fan of ketchup or bbq sauce on your meatloaf? We are. I usually make a ketchup/brown sugar topping, but I had a jar of this country ketchup in the pantry. It's very sweet and tangy, almost bbq-y, it was excellent all by itself.
Fun for any age.
Items used to make this recipe:
(affiliate links)
stand mixer https://amzn.to/3g69Uxw
professional muffin pan https://amzn.to/3re3ymi
baker’s joy https://amzn.to/3IP7jUW
ZUCCHINI MEATLOAF MINIS
makes 10 mini meatloaves
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 cup grated zucchini
2 tablespoons grated onion
3/4 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 cup ketchup
1 egg
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup ketchup or barbecue sauce (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F and spray a 12-cup muffin pan with non-stick baking spray.
Combine the beef, zucchini, onion, bread crumbs, ketchup, egg, salt, and pepper (I like to do this in the stand mixer fitted with a dough hook).
Divide meat mixture evenly among 10 muffin cups and top each with about a tablespoon of barbecue sauce (or your favorite ketchup/brown sugar meatloaf topping).
Bake for about 25 minutes.
Rest for 5 minutes before removing from pan.
Notes
Depending on the fat content of the beef used, you may need to blot fat to drain from mini meatloaves after removing them from the pan.
Also, if your shredded zucchini is very wet, you may want to squeeze some of the moisture out of it before adding to the meat mixture. I used medium sized zucchinis and didn't feel the need to squeeze any moisture out of them.