Slow Cooker Meatloaf

With the cold winter months approaching, my friends and I decided to meet-up to do a freezer meal exchange. The rules to the freezer meal was to create 3 different meals, each meal had to server 4+ people and be freezable.  Pretty easy?


One of the items that I brought to the exchange was Slow Cooker Meatloaf.  I know it's a pretty easy recipe, prepare it and then bake for an hour.  But for me an hour of cook time is not really acceptable.  See, Justin works full-time and goes to school part-time (which feels like full-time), and so he has classes (as of now Mon/Wed from 8 to 10 pm at night) and with his commute he gets home at 6.  On a good day, I get home at 5 or 5:15.  By the time I get the kids all squared away and can focus on dinner - it's 5:45. Add 15 minutes of prep and an hour of baking... and you're looking at 7.

So I wanted to try this recipe.  I was hesitant, to be honest.  After all it has ground beef in the slow cooker for 8 hours, which is dangerous.

Results:  DELICIOUS.  There is a secret with this, this recipe below goes straight from freezer to the slow cooker (no thawing).  The frozen ground beef will thaw as it cook which adds time to cooking.

I recommend keeping it to a strict 8 hour cook time, anything longer and the beef can become overcooked ---and be very generous with your BBQ sauce.  Plus next time, add more seasoning as it was kind of bland (the BBQ helped).  

I used a 4 quart slow cooker.

Original recipe adapted from:   StockPilingMoms

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2/3 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon sale
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sage
• 1.5# lean ground beef
• BBQ sauce (or you can use ketchup)

Directions:

1. Label your bag with the details.
2. Mix together the ingredients above into a gallon size freezer bag.  I formed it into a meatloaf roll(which takes the width of the gallon bag up). 
3. Place in freezer until completely frozen.
4. When you want to make it, put the meatloaf roll in slow cooker pot (I used 4 quart) and cover with your favorite BBQ sauce (or ketchup).
5. Cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.