Banana Meatloaf in an hour

Banana Meatloaf? My meatloaf going bananas?

Banana Meatloaf is a thing. Yes, you have heard me correctly. It’s not as eccentric as meat & vegetables in Jell-O from the 1950s, I promise. You can’t taste the bananas in the meatloaf despite its name. This recipe was first developed in August 2014. I have made tweaks and improvements to update on May 10 2020. For this recipe, I used bourbon barbecue sauce since it gives the flavour more depth. Any kind of barbecue sauce will work. If you don’t have barbecue sauce on hand, the meatloaf is still moist without it.

When I don’t want to bake ANOTHER banana loaf, I add mashed bananas to make a meatloaf instead. (Most moist meat-loaf recipes call for 1 egg. Here’s where mashed bananas can also do the trick!)

How to serve meat loaf so that kids will eat it? Drizzle it with ketchup. This meatloaf is already loaded with flavour, so you can skip the ketchup when eating it.

If you don’t have half an hour to spare to make breadcrumbs from scratch, you can crush some crackers into crumbs too.

Don’t feel like using your hands to mix the ground beef? You can use a wooden spoon or a KitchenAid stand mixer.

Preheat oven to 350F. Serves 4 to 5.

BANANA MEATLOAF INGREDIENTS

1 lb ground beef
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
1 cup white bread crumbs mixed with 1 TBSP dried parsley

2 bananas, mashed using the backs of a fork
2 tsp prepared mustard
3 TBSP onions, chopped

DIRECTIONS

Mix meat, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs.

Combine mashed bananas bananas, onions and mustard.

Add to meat mixture and mix well

Place into a loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour until meat is thoroughly cooked.

Oven Roasted Potatoes

While the meatloaf is baking, you can prepare oven roasted potatoes. Wash and chop 3 to 4 potatoes. In a medium or large bowl, drizzle 1 tbsp of olive oil, grind 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper, add 1 tsp dried tarragon. Use a spoon to coat. Place on a baking sheet when the timer is at the 45 minute mark.

Easy Mango Spinach Cucumber Avocado Salad

Prep this easy salad while the oven is cooking the meatloaf and potatoes. Score a vertical line from the top of the mango to the bottom of the mango, then proceed to use your hand to peel the skin off easily. Chop the mangoes into chunks, slice the cucumbers and slice the avocados.

Salad ingredients
2 mangoes
1 cucumber
1 avocado
1/4 cup spinach (or a handful) salad
Vinaigrette: 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp champagne vinegar, 1 tbsp honey, salt and pepper to taste.
The vinaigrette can be made in a small bowl; stir well before pouring onto your salad. You can customize your own vinaigrette recipe with your favourite vinegar. The trick is to keep your oil to vinegar ratio 3:1. No honey? Use sugar. I like making them in small batches since I like using different vinegar each time. I like to use a large container since I can shake, shake, shake that container to toss or mix it. Making salad is a great way to use up any produce you’ve got on hand.

When banana meat loaf is done, turn the oven up to 375F for another 10 minutes to continue roasting the potatoes.

This is an easy Sunday dinner to make (while trying to break up fighting between the boys over the same toy). Enjoy with a glass of Merlot or Cabernet Merlot. Cheers!