Mini Cheese-stuffed Meatloaves

Coming home from my Costco trip this week I found myself with 4 1/2 lbs of Organic Beef.  Fortunately these are packaged in 1 1/3 lbs so I can just plop them in the freezer.  My family is not a big red meat family but I crave it once in a while.  This seems humorous to me as I was a vegetarian through out college and until I met my husband in my mid 20′s.

Although tacos is an easy route I found this recipe in my coupon flyer that came from Kroger.  They are kid friendly and remind me of big meatballs.  What the heck I will give it a try.

I found that using a large ice cream scoop kept my hands from having to roll up the raw meat and you could easily push in your cheese square.

ice cream scoop

perfect little rounds

The kids said they did not like the sauce.  Hard to believe it was just sugared up ketchup.  I thought it was nice and sweet but I would decrease or eliminate the amount of sugar in this next time.

I might even add some parsley or grated veggies to sneak in some more goodness.

I gobbled up two at dinner, the kids ate one.  I served it with noodles with olive oil and cheese only because they were requesting pasta that night.  Maybe so mac and cheese would be tasty on the side too.

I am sure you can use any of your favorite meat loaf recipes and make these kid sized treats that take only 30 minutes to bake.  You might even want to try mini muffin tins for a kids buffet.  Just decrease cooking time.

TO MAKE AHEAD:  prepare the meat loaves without the sauce in the pan and cover with saran wrap the night before or morning of.  Take the meatloaf filled pan out while preheating the oven and prepare sauce and proceed with the recipe.

Mini Cheese-stuffed Meatloaves Recipe–adapted from Kroger

• 1 egg  beaten
• 3/4 cup milk (I used 1 percent)
• 1/2 cup Quick cook Oats-uncooked
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 lb ground beef or Turkey (my pkg was closer to 1 1/3)
• 12 cubes mild chedder cheese cubes (3/4inch cubes)
• 2/3 cup tomato ketchup
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar (may want to decrease this to 1-1 1/2 tablespoons)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Spray 12 muffin tins with cooking spray
Combine the egg, milk, oats and salt in a large bowl.  Add the meat and mix well.  Will be a little runny so keep mixing to well distributed.

Divide mixture into 12 equal portions  (using a large ice cream scoop if available)
Insert one cheese cube into center of meat and either roll into ball around cheese in your hands or just scoop it into the muffin tin.

Combine ketchup and brown sugar in a separate bowl.  Stir thoroughly and spread over each mini meatloaf.

Bake uncovered in center of oven for 30 mins.

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