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My husband Jack’s Meatloaf with Gravy is pure, delicious comfort food!
Jack and I both grew up in large families where meatloaf was on the menu quite often. With lots of mouths to feed, meatloaf was an easy and economical way for both of our parents to feed a crowded dinner table of kids. (And, not to mention, leftover meatloaf sandwiches are THE BEST!)
Today’s version of this classic comfort food – Jack’s Meatloaf with Gravy – is reminiscent of how Jack remembers meatloaf being served when he grew up.
Jack’s Meatloaf with Gravy is a moist, hearty and classically-seasoned version made with ground beef that has been simply flavored with onions, garlic, salt, and pepper. He also adds a little bit of dry thyme to the mixture – a seasoning that really enhances the flavor of the beef.
The thick, rich gravy served with Jack’s meatloaf has a ton of flavor – in fact, this is a recipe you’ll want to refer back to anytime you need a great beef-flavored gravy to serve with your meal but don’t have many pan drippings.
(If you really want to take this gravy up a notch – make our homemade brown stock as the base for your gravy. But if you want a quicker meal, a good low-sodium canned beef stock will also work. You can even make the gravy ahead of time, and reheat before serving.)
To serve Jack’s Meatloaf with Gravy – simply slice generous portions and spoon the gravy over the top! We love this meal served with our Green Beans with Tarragon and our Roasted Mashed Sweet Potatoes would be another great side dish to round out this wonderful meal. Enjoy!
This recipe originally appeared on A Family Feast in November 2012. (We were long overdue to take new photos of the recipe!)
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Jack’s Meatloaf
Ingredients
For the meatloaf
- 4 slices white bread, crusts cut off
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 pounds 80/20 ground beef
- 2 eggs (FYI: 1 egg per pound of meat is almost always the rule for meatloaf)
- 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
- 1 tablespoon garlic, finely minced
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dry thyme
For the gravy
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1 14 3/4 ounce can low sodium beef stock (or make your own beef stock if possible)
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
- Few dashes of hot sauce (we like Cholula)
- 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet browning and seasoning sauce
- Salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions
- To prepare the meatloaf, begin by soaking the white bread in the milk.
- While bread is soaking, add all other ingredients to a large bowl.
- With your hands, work the soaked bread until mushed. Add bread and any milk left in the bowl to the beef mixture.
- Gently fold and mix all ingredients until blended. Do not over mix or meatloaf will come out tough.
- On a parchment lined sheet pan, shape mixture into a loaf. Use a spatula to square off all sides. With wet hands, smooth all surfaces of the loaf. This will stop it from cracking when it cooks.
- Place in the refrigerator for one hour to set up.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Place meatloaf in preheated oven on center rack and bake for 45 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 150 degrees with a probe thermometer. Special note on this. Once you pierce the meatloaf with the probe and remove it, a flood of juices will flow out like a faucet. If you probe it and it is done, leave the probe in as it sets. If it needs to go back in the oven, plug the hole. I needed five more minutes and used a metal skewer to plug it. Sounds silly but worked great.
- Remove from oven and let rest 15 minutes before cutting and serving.
- To prepare the gravy, melt butter in a medium-sized sauce pan. When butter is completely melted, add flour and stir. Cook the flour and butter mixture stirring constantly for 3-5 minutes or until the raw flour smell is gone. (The smell will resemble cooked chestnuts when ready.)
- Add the entire can of stock and stir with a wire whisk until blended.
- Add milk, thyme, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and Kitchen Bouquet. Stir to blend.
- Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to your taste.
- Serve the gravy over slices of meatloaf.
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I’m looking forward to trying this recipe (with a few alterations due to Sensitivities) it looks far better than the mess I just made with ground meat and a loaf pan! Again, due to Sensitivities I have to eliminate tomatoes, green peppers, black pepper, seasoning in general but salt is acceptable! Using this as a guide I think we will have a lasting and enjoyable meatloaf once again! Thank you!!
Good luck Kimberly – we hope the substitutions work out for you!
Very Delicious!!! I made for dinner tonight with red bliss mash potato, corn an gravy. And not did it being back some fond memories of childhood. Thank you so much Jack for bringing back those memories! This one’s A KEEPER!!!
So glad you enjoyed the recipe Dorinda!
This is the best one ever! Thanks for sharing!!!!!!
Thanks Abigail!
This meatloaf is better than my mom’s
Thanks William! 🙂
Hello from Monterrey Mexico – the recipe looks awesome but we don’t have Kitchen Bouquet here, is there something I could use as a substitute? Many thanks!!!!
Hi Emily – Do you happen to live near a Walmart? I believe they carry Kitchen Bouquet. Or, there is also a brand called Gravy Master that would be similar to Kitchen Bouquet. If you can’t find that locally, I suppose you could try ordering it online? Hope that helps!
Tried this recipe today adding tiny diced carrots along with the onions. Using ground turkey instead of beef. To the meatloaf I added a dash of natural chicken stock. For the gravy, I also added natural chicken stock and used the drippings from the meatloaf into the gravy and followed everything else “almost”to a tee. The bread dipped in milk made the texture of the meat tender and it molded together very well as I had ran out of eggs and was worried about it falling apart. It didn’t.
This meal was scrumptious thank you so much! Definitely will use it again for feeding a family of five!
Sounds like a great adaptation Shayla! Glad you liked it!
I saved this to Pinterest. When you click on the recipe in Pinterest, it shows the recipe, but shows the amount of thyme twice listed under Produce.. Going to the web site everything looks fine.
Thanks Cindy – I see it too! I’m not sure why – Pinterest automatically picks up data from our website/recipe card to populate their recipe list on pins, but unfortunately, we don’t have any way of fixing the issue. I suspect it is somehow picking up some edited data that should have been overwritten – not sure! Either way, I always suggest clicking through to the original blog for recipes you find on Pinterest – that way you can ensure you are getting the most up to date version. Thanks for letting us know!
If I could give this a 6 out of 5, I would!! 🙂 Best meatloaf I’ve ever had. My husband absolutely loves it, too. Served it for company, and everyone wanted the recipe. I searched FOREVER for a recipe without a tomato-based sauce. I’ve make it twice now, and didn’t change anything, but the shredded carrots mentioned by Diana sound interesting. May try that next time.
THANK YOU!!
Wow Anne-Marie! Thank YOU! So glad you enjoyed the recipe!
This recipe is definitely a keeper! The only thing I did different was to sauté the onions then the garlic. I also finely grated a carrot then added it to the meat. The gravy was wonderful too. Everyone loved it. My husband did miss the BBQ sauce though. He’s a hard nut to crack. I definitely will keep this as #1 for my meat loaf recipe with gravy!
Thanks Diana! So glad you enjoyed the recipe! (Even without the BBQ sauce!) 😉
ABSOLUTELY delicious. Haven’t had meatloaf in so long an I saw this recipe and I knew I had to try it. My family loved it. Thank you so much.
You are very welcome Dorinda – so glad you enjoyed the recipe!