Meat Loaf Low-Carb

I wanted to make meat loaf but wasn’t sure what to substitute for the bread, cracker and oatmeal I usually use. I pondered this and decided to try cauliflower since I’ve been subbing with it for potatoes and rice. I was so surprised when my SO went back for a THIRD helping, he loved it! This is a very versatile recipe; tweak the seasonings to your taste or mood. This is a really quick recipe to put together.

1 ½ - 2 lbs. ground beef, or in combination with ground pork or fowl (I usually keep at least ¾ of the mix as beef)
1 – 1 ½ cups ‘riced’ fresh cauliflower
¼ - ½ cup coarsely or finely chopped onion (or 1 tsp onion powder or 1 Tbsp dried onion flakes)
2 cloves minced garlic or 1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dry mustard powder or 1 Tbsp prepared mustard (yellow, Dijon, whatever your preference)
1 - 2 tsp poultry seasoning (commercial or recipe below - I love poultry seasoning so I tend to use more)
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp black pepper
1 - 2 tsp salt
1 large egg

To rice cauliflower: Use a food processor with the regular blade to process fresh cauliflower until the pieces are rice-sized (or smaller for the meatloaf). You can use a knife to chop it up very finely or shred it with a hand-held grater.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Beat egg lightly in a bowl. Mix in all seasoning ingredients. Use your hands to mix in the meat and riced cauliflower. Don't overmix it. Form into a roll and place in a loaf pan, leaving some space on the sides (don’t pack it into the pan).

Place pan in oven, reduce temperature to 350 F. Bake for about 1 hour. Remove from oven and test with a meat thermometer, it should read 155 F in the center of the loaf. Bake longer if necessary. (If you have an electronic oven thermometer, just set it for ground beef and 155 F and remove it from the oven when the alarm goes off.)

Optional: 10 - 15 minutes before the meatloaf is done, you can cover it with low/no-carb ketchup or thick salsa. I also usually make homemade pan gravy from the drippings, but was feeling lazy so I used canned turkey gravy (3 g. carb per ¼ cup). I mixed in some of the meatloaf drippings to give it a flavor boost. It worked great!

Individual loaves: You can make individual loaves in a muffin pan. Muffin meatloaves should cook in 15 - 20 minutes.

Poultry Seasoning

Makes about 1/3 cup

1 Tbsp celery seed
1 Tbsp dried marjoram
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
1 Tbsp dried sage
1 Tbsp dried thyme
3/4 tsp ground pepper or 1 tsp whole peppercorns (you can use white, black, green or mixed)

Mix ingredients together in a small bowl or grind in a mortar and pestle. Store in a tight sealing spice jar.