Italian Meatloaf Parmesan

Steven

5 years ago

I don’t like dry Italian meatloaf, no one does.

I make my Italian Meatloaf Parmesan similar in style to a Chicken Parmigiana or a dish called Carne Pizzaiola. Using one of my meatball recipes, I bake the meatloaf parmigiana smothered in a tangy marinara sauce, topping it off with shredded Fontina cheese. Simmering the meatloaf in the sauce helps produce one of the most tender, moist, and flavorful meatloaves you’ve ever tasted. As far as leftovers go, this makes the most incredible meatloaf sandwiches!

I love this easy Italian meatloaf recipe. I’ve made it with beef, turkey, bison, pork, and chicken, and every one of them was a huge success with my family. Big on flavor and never bland or boring, it’s an easy meatloaf recipe that’s fun to make. The hardest part about making it is sautéing the onions and garlic.

This meatloaf recipe can easily be made into meatballs if you prefer. I like to stuff a small cube of fontina or mozzarella cheese into the center of each meatball so that they all have a gooey, melted cheese center.

Why is Meatloaf Dry?

1. The main reason most meatloaf recipes turn out dry is due to overcooking. One of the secrets to a great meatloaf recipe is the instant-read thermometer. Just like grilling a hamburger, once you overcook the meat it will dry out. Know the cooking temperatures for whatever meat you’re using, and don’t go beyond that temperature.

- Ground beef, pork, and bison: you need to cook it to 160°F
- Ground Poultry: 165°F

2. The second thing to prevent a dry Italian meatloaf is to add milk, yogurt, stock, or half & half to your bread crumbs. This technique called a ‘Panade’ and is a combination of starch and liquid that is mixed into ground meats in order to bind them. By adding liquid to the binder, you keep the cooked protein tender and juicy.

3. The third thing needed to conquer dry meatloaf is to sauté the onions and garlic prior to mixing them into the ground meat. The added fat from the olive oil is especially important in lean cuts of meat such as bison, and turkey. Even with beef, I like to get the leaner ground beef and add my own fat to the mixture, I like to know the fat is actually a good source from olive oil, eggs, and cheese rather than the weird bits of animal fats that go into some ground meat.

A few simple ingredients are all it takes for an amazing Italian Meatloaf

Ingredients in Italian Meatloaf Parmesan

A good quality meatloaf recipe needs good quality ingredients, these are the ingredients in my Italian meatloaf parmesan recipe:

Ground Meat: Always use leaner cuts of beef like 90:10 for my meatloaf recipe. That way the olive oil, eggs, cheese, and half & half don’t make the recipe too unhealthy. This Italian Meatloaf recipe works with pork, beef, bison, turkey, and ground chicken. Personally, I like Italian meatloaf made with turkey.
Onions and garlic: I sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil then let them cool prior to mixing all the ingredients together. Meatloaf is only cooked to a low temperature, raw onions and garlic will never cook properly if not sauteed prior to adding the other meatloaf ingredients.
Eggs: The eggs are what help bind the meatloaf ingredients together.
Breadcrumbs and dairy: I like half & half, I always have it on hand for my coffee, so it’s a staple in my household. I loved it after the first time I tried it and never went back. Traditionally I believe milk and breadcrumbs are what make up a ‘panade’, but if you’re using a lean cut of meat for your Italian meatloaf, you need a little extra fat in it to keep it from being dry. Regular plain breadcrumbs or Panko bread crumbs both work fine, but I wouldn’t use a preseasoned breadcrumb. For a Gluten-free option, you can use gluten-free Panko breadcrumbs.
Cheeses: I mix a good quality Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated into the meatloaf mixture. The taste difference between real parmesan cheese and the fake stuff in a can is like night and day. On top, I use either grated low-moisture mozzarella or freshly grated fontina cheese. My personal preference is freshly grated fontina, but either will work.

Marinara Sauce

Fresh herbs: Fresh rosemary and fresh parsley wake this recipe up; fresh basil is a good substitute for rosemary. I use dried oregano in the sauce, fresh oregano can be a little too intense.
Canned tomatoes: I use San Marzano crushed tomatoes for the sauce. For Italian sauce recipes, I always prefer to use San Marzano tomatoes. They were originally grown in a small town named San Marzano outside of Naples, Italy. These tomatoes have exactly the taste you want in a tomato sauce that no other tomato seems to match.
Marinara sauce: This sauce recipe has only 5-ingredients and takes about 3-minutes to prepare. It serves 2-functions here, first, the Marinara sauce tastes amazing with this meatloaf recipe. The second is that after the Italian meatloaf is browned, the sauce is poured over the top. It covers the meatloaf for the second half of the cooking, locking in moisture and letting it gently simmer until it reaches temperature.

Here is my recipe for Italian Meatloaf Parmesan