This week I tried to take a classic comfort food and give it a little modern BBQ twist. Meatloaf has been a staple of American cuisine since the great depression and most of the time it is a large, dense, and thick slice of meat, typically ground beef, but everything is open to interpretation these days.
I was going to make a typical meatloaf with 1 pound of ground beef and 1.25 pounds of ground pork, put it on the smoker and have it for dinner one night, but we ended up making plans with family so I decided to see what I could do to switch it up and make it last with more people. Normally I would use even amount of ground meat, so a 50/50 ratio, but in this instance, this is what I get for not reading labels until I got home. You can absolutely use any types of ground meat you want, just try and keep the combination ratio as even as possible.
As most of us know, meatloaf is a formed by using ketchup and bread crumbs to help the loaf stay together. Since I was making BBQ meatloaf, I decided to use BBQ sauce instead. This was great because I still got the same effect of the sauce acting as a binder, but then it added another layer of flavor. You will often see diced onion and garlic in a meatloaf as well, but I decided to omit those simply because with how small these were, I didn’t want the diced onion and garlic to take over as the primary flavor instead of the meat.
In a large mixing bowl, I added both ground meats, the BBQ sauce, and my prototype beef rub and mixed thoroughly with my hands. I grabbed a 9 cup muffin pan and place a small meatball in each cup and then with my fingers, I pushed the meat down into the cup and formed the meat into a cup of its own. Here’s where it got fun, I added 2 small Colby Jack cheese cubes into each meat cup, as seen below. I like adding the cheese because it adds some more flavor, and I live in Wisconsin, so everything needs cheese. The muffin pan is great because it offers a good way to form the meat, but there are mini loaf pans as well if you would prefer a smaller version of the traditional loaf look.
I ended up starting to cover them up before I got the photo, so I apologize for that, but you get the gist.
With the leftover meat in the mixing bowl, I formed little lids for each mini loaf to enclose it. Once I had them all covered up and sealed, I used a butter knife to loosen them up within the muffin cups and tipped them out on to some prepared aluminum foil on a large baking sheet. At this time, I gave them a another sprinkle of rub over the top and I got my Pit Boss Sportsman 1100 all set up and set to 250 degrees with my favorite Lumber Jack competition blend pellets.
I let the mini loaves sit on the smoker for about 45-50 minutes undisturbed and finally temp checked them with my Inkbird Instant read thermometer and they were at about 153 degrees internal. I wanted them to at least be at 160 degrees internal before I pulled them off. Right about the 60 minute mark they hit where I wanted and I pulled them off. Thankfully they had a nice long rest because of the 40 minute drive to my moms house.
I do want to emphasize something, They lost a lot of the heat on the drive. I put these back in the oven to warm them up once we arrived in order to bring the internal temp about 140 degrees. All cooked food should be above 140 degrees internal for food safety reasons. Bacteria can grow rapidly once they get under 140, and keeping them above 140 kills the bacteria and the food is safe to eat.
The great thing about this recipe, and the next few that I am going to do is that it also makes a perfect party food. They do not take long to prepare, they are small enough to fit on a plate with other foods, and you can eat them in 2-3 bites.
Ingredients:
- 1 Pound Ground Beef
- 1 Pound Ground Pork
- 2 Tbsp BBQ sauce
- 2 Tbsp your choice BBQ Rub.
- 8 oz Colby Jack Cheese Cubes (optional)
Recipe:
- In a medium/ large mixing bowl, add both meats, BBQ rub, and BBQ sauce and mix thoroughly.
- Spray muffin or loaf pan with cooking oil and place a meatball in the cup. Then push the meat to form fit the muffin cup, leaving a well in the middle.
- Add the cheese cubes to the well in the middle of the loaves and use the remaining meat to close the meat loaves together. Place loaves on a baking sheet.
- Prepare smoker to 250 degrees with your choice of wood or pellet flavor.
- Place baking sheet on the smoker and watch until they hit about 160 degrees internal.
- Let rest, and serve with your favorite meat loaf sides.
As always, keep cookin’ and Lovely Jubbly!
Lovely Jubbly BBQ 