Italian Sausage Meatloaf
Easy main course meal, a nice twist to your regular meatloaf. Use mild Italian sausage if you don’t like too much spice. Add other spices like oregano or parsley, along with the basil or in place of it.
Ingredients:
3 slices of day old white or whole wheat bread diced into very small cubes
1/2 cup of milk
1 pound of spicy Italian sausage, casings removed- some grocery stores sell the sausage meat before it is put into the sausage casings.
1 pound of extra lean ground beef
2 cups of finely chopped yellow onion or whatever onions you have on hand
4 cups of very thinly sliced button mushrooms
1 large egg
3 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
1 cup of chopped fresh basil
2 teaspoons of sea salt
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes- optional
1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
Topping:
1 cup of ketchup
1 tablespoon horseradish
3 tablespoons of light brown sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. You do not need to grease the 9 x 5 loaf pan, there is enough fat in the Italian sausage.
2. Mix the diced up bread and milk together and let soak for about 5 minutes in a large mixing bowl.
3. Heat a large sauté pan on medium high heat, add a few tablespoons of grapeseed or vegetable oil. When pan hot and shimmering, add the onions and mushrooms. Mix every few minutes until the mushroom mixture has browned nicely, maybe 10-15 minutes, then remove from pan and cool.
Sauteing the onions and mushrooms
4. Add the Italian sausage, ground beef, egg, hot pepper flakes, chopped basil, Worcestershire sauce, the cooled mushroom and onion mixture and salt to the bread and milk mixture. Gently mix, using your hands, until just combined.
Extra Lean Ground Beef and Italian Sausage
All ingredients ready to be combined.
5. Add the meat mixture to the loaf pan, press in well and even out in the pan. Stir together the ketchup, horseradish and brown sugar, then spread evenly over the meat mixture.
Meat mixture pressed into loaf pan
Spreading ketchup topping onto the meatloaf
6. Bake until meatloaf is cooked through and the glaze is slightly dried, about 70 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before cutting to serve. I carefully drained the excess fat out of the pan before serving.
Baked Italian Sausage Meatloaf
