Bacon Wrapped Mini Meat Loaves with Crispy Fried Onions

Shopping the sales at the grocery store is something that I’ve done for years. This week’s flyer had ‘family pack sized trays’ of lean ground beef prominently displayed. I came home with about 1.4 kg of the ground beef and then did some net surfing. Even though Sloppy Joes were tempting, I didn’t have any green peppers which were needed for the recipe I intended to make, so I ended up with third-pounder sized hamburgers for the barbecue and a tray of mini meat loaves.

The recipe I’m posting below has BOTH elements of the two mini meat loaf experiments I made and was inspired by this recipe.

Bacon Wrapped Mini Meat Loaves – makes 6 mini meatloaves

Mini Meat Loaves

750 gm lean ground beef
1 egg
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp diced, sauteed onions
1 tsp salt
shake or two of garlic powder, if desired
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup seasoned Italian breadcrumbs

6 strips bacon, for wrapping

Topping

1/4 cup ketchup
2 tsp prepared French’s mustard
2 tbsp brown sugar

~1/4 cup fried onions, if desired

Preheat oven to 350 deg Fahrenheit.

Line a baking sheet with a strip of aluminum foil or parchment paper to make clean-up easier.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the ingredients for the meat loaves, except for the strips of bacon. Divide the meat mixture evenly into six portions and shape into round or oval patties. Wrap a strip of bacon around each patty so that they meet or just slightly overlap.

In a small bowl, combine the topping ingredients. Spoon a scant tablespoon of the topping onto each patty and place onto the baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, or until the topping is bubbly and the bacon wrap is crispy.

If desired, after about 40-45 minutes, remove the baking tray from the oven, sprinkle some of the fried onions on top and return to the oven to finish baking. (Adding the onions at the beginning of the baking is liable to result in burnt onions. Even though I waited until I had baked the patties for 40 minutes … 20 minutes left … the onions were a bit crispier than I would have preferred.)

Bacon Wrapped Mini Meat Loaf – I wasn’t sure how crispy the bacon wrap would get in the allotted baking time, so I didn’t put the topping on a couple of the meat loaves

Topping and Crispy Fried Onion Mini Meat Loaf – The other four meat loaves had both the topping and the fried onion … but no bacon wrap.

Serve with a generous scoop of your favourite creamy mashed potatoes.

The inside of the meat loaf looks a little dry in this picture but it wasn’t

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