Turkey Meatloaf

Meat­loaf is one of my favorite com­fort foods and can be delight­ful­ly straight­for­ward to make — it is, after all, exact­ly what its name sug­gests: a loaf of meat. Still, there are many dif­fer­ent ways in which you can vary the recipe, from the type of ground meat you choose to use (beef, pork, turkey, or per­haps some com­bi­na­tion of all of them togeth­er), to the sauces you mix into the glaze (a lot use ketchup), and so on. For exam­ple, I’m not a big fan of veg­eta­bles, so I try to sneak them into my meals in sub­tle ways; and so, you will find chopped spinach and shred­ded car­rots in my meatloaf!

For my par­tic­u­lar take on meat­loaf, you will need 2 pounds of ground turkey; about 1 cup of chopped spinach; 1 car­rot, shred­ded; 1/2 a yel­low onion, diced; 2 table­spoons of sour cream; 2 eggs; 1 table­spoon of Worces­ter­shire sauce; 2 table­spoons of hoisin sauce; and about 1 tea­spoon of salt. I gen­er­al­ly try to avoid using ground turkey that is too lean, i.e., 98% lean or high­er, so that the meat­loaf won’t be too dry, but oth­er means, such as adding sour cream, can also help keep it moist.

Start by com­bin­ing the dry ingre­di­ents — the ground turkey, car­rot, onion, spinach, and salt — and gen­tly mix­ing them. After the dry ingre­di­ents are just com­bined, I add the eggs to help hold every­thing togeth­er. Then come the wet ingre­di­ents, which include the sour cream, hoisin sauce, Worces­ter­shire sauce. Fold in with a spat­u­la; you can also use your hands, if you prefer.

At this point, make the glaze. Com­bine one table­spoon of sour cream with one table­spoon of hoisin sauce and stir togeth­er. I admit it does­n’t look ter­ri­bly appe­tiz­ing here, but it tastes quite nice, in my opinion.

Spread gen­er­ous­ly in an even lay­er across the top of the meat­loaf, and sprin­kle with breadcrumbs. 

Bake at 325° for 50 min­utes. After the 50 min­utes have passed, set the oven to Broil, and broil for an addi­tion­al 2 min­utes, or until any vis­i­ble bread­crumbs on top are gold­en brown.

And there’s your turkey meatloaf!