Hamburger, Meatloaf and Meatballs Tips
Buy 5 pounds or more of hamburger and prepare your favorite meatloaf recipe. Then form part of it into any combination of the following:
- 1 or 2 meat loaves
- meatballs
- mini meat loaves (the size that will fit into mini loaf pans)
- portions that will fit into muffin tins
- form the rest into nice sized patties
Lay everything out on cookie sheets and freeze. When frozen, place into freezer bags. When you need something quick for dinner, just pull a bag of something out of the freezer.
Here are some ways to use your frozen hamburger treasures:
- Spaghetti and meatballs
- Mini meat loaves- The smaller they are the faster they cook. The mini meat loaves cook quickly, but the muffin tin size cook even faster.
- Smothered Steaks- Use the hamburger patties and fry them, making a gravy to go over them. Serve with tater tots, a veggie and salad.
- Bacon Steaks- Wrap a piece of bacon around a hamburger patty and then fry it. Serve with French fries, baked beans and coleslaw.
- Smothered Meatballs- Slow cook the meatballs in a can of Cream of Mushroom soup for about 20 minutes. For that extra something, add a little sour cream at the end of the cooking time. These are great over rice or noodles.
- Meatloaf- Last but not least, just have a good old meatloaf dinner. You can serve it with mashed potatoes or better yet toss in some baked potatoes to cook at the same time as the meatloaf.
When making meatloaf, you don’t have to bake it separately. You can make it a one pan dish by adding potatoes, carrots and onions before you bake it. Add a little brown sugar to any meat loaf recipe to bring out the flavor.
- If you are getting tired of having to carefully form another hamburger patty for the barbecue, here’s an easy trick my mom always used to make hers.Tear some wax paper into squares. I usually tear strips about 6 inches wide, stack them together and cut the strips in half. This doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re just making squares that are just a little bigger than your hamburger patties. Now lay a wax paper square down, set a ball of hamburger on it and top with another piece of wax paper. Take a plate and gently press the ball to the thickness that you would like.
- If a meatloaf recipe calls for a little milk, use buttermilk instead. This will give you a more tender meatloaf.
- Instead of pouring ketchup on top of your meatloaf, try this glaze on it:
Meatloaf Glaze
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. cider vinegar.Mix and pour on meatloaf about 15 minutes before it is done.
If you use this recipe for any the above, you will probably want to use ketchup instead of the barbecue sauce that is mentioned in the recipe.
Basic Meatloaf
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 tsp. pepper
3/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal or 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup ketchup or barbecue sauce
Mix everything together except ketchup. Put into a loaf pan. Spread ketchup over the top. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until done. Serves 6.
Photo By: floodkoff
I do the meat balls a lot and freeze them already frozen.
I just put them on a pan with a rack and put them in the oven at 350 for about 10 min.
take some out of the freezer and add them to a sweet and sour sauce to serve over rice or noodles.
I make my own S&S sauce using 1 cup vinegar 1 cup sugar or splenda and a tbsp ketchup and soy sauce. I add a tsp of corn starch to thicken it.
quick easy meal just add salad.
Meat balls also make a nice appetizer at parties with different things to dip them in. even follows the one bite rule.
Grandma, do you think you can come live with me? With all your ideas that you have you save so many people time and money!
I mix up meatloaf burgers and cook several pounds of them on the George Foreman Grill and freeeze them. I only have to wash the bowl and grill once and I can take as many as I want out of the baggie before mealtime.
Meatballs made ahead of time are great for entertaining. A friend recently hosted a meal for 20 people. She made two pots of pasta, and filled a slow cooker with meatballs and sauce. Everyone helped themselves and there was plenty of food.
[...] of giving you an exact recipe here is a link for the recipe from Dining on a Dime and a ton of different meatloaf and meatball ideas all [...]
This recipe sounds wonderful, but I make 4 meatloaves at a time; 1 for dinner, 1 for leftovers/lunches (hubby comes home every day to take care of his Mom) and 2 for the freezer. I’ve never used this much milk! I’m still struggling to relearn cooking, as my adult daughter has done it for the last 10 years, but can no longer do it on a daily basis. Is this recipe quadruple-able?? Any suggestions??? Help me!!!
Sunny this recipe is for 1 meat loaf that fits in a loaf pan. It feeds a family of 4 for 1 meal with leftovers. As far as the milk goes you can use less if you want. Meatloaf recipes are about as varied as people are and you can adjust the liquid (milk) and the oats or crumbs in them to what you want. Holler if you have more questions.
I just dump in my ingredients when I make meatloaf, but I don’t have dry mustard so I use the regular kind as well as some ketchup and BBQ sauce. I also add rice to stretch it. My mom always did 1 lb. hamburger and 1 lb. Jimmy Dean sausage for meatloaf, with the crumbs of some kind, ketchup, mustard, salt, and pepper. Since I got your cookbook, I make it with your recipe and my mom’s combined. I don’t like anybody’s meatloaf except for my family’s because of the sausage and sauce mixture we use (ketchup, mustard, brown sugar). I will also add italian season, oregano, or something like that and sometimes cheese to my meat loaf/meat balls. Thank you for helping me give my food a lil more life.