This Healthy Meatloaf Meal Prep is based on the recipe my mom used to make growing up, but made with real whole food ingredients! You can serve this classic dish as a dinner, or make it into meal prep bowls to pack for healthy lunches all week long. It’s naturally gluten free, dairy free, and paleo as well.
This recipe was a combination of inspirations. First up, I was craving meatloaf the way my mom made it when I was growing up. And secondly, I wanted to make it into a meal prep option like one of my best friends does for her lunches.
Which brings me to this… I absolutely love how ideas come together just by sharing our everyday lives. It’s always fun to reminisce about childhood favorites and trade ideas back and forth about what to eat through a busy workweek.
This same friend I mentioned just came to visit, and we had some extra awesome days hiking in Glacier National Park . I mentioned to her I just made a meal prep version of meatloaf the way I remember her talking about in the past.
She had completely forgotten about how she used to do that. And so, of course, she got all excited about going home to make meatloaf meal prep lunches again!
Growing up, my mom always used to serve meatloaf with mashed potatoes and something green
Since I’m not crazy about cold mashed potatoes, I swapped that out for roasted sweet potatoes. Neither Tyler nor I usually has the time (or the option, in his case) to heat our lunches.
So when I’m working on something for meal prep, I always like to keep in mind that it should be good cold, straight out of the fridge. However, if I make this for dinner, I will often make my mashed potato recipe to go along with.
For lunches, I tend to stick to the roasted green beans pictured here. But if you’re using this recipe for dinner, any veggie you like works well. I tend to swap the green beans for broccoli if I’m serving this hot. (But really… cold 2-day-old broccoli isn’t my favorite thing.)
Now let’s jump in and make this recipe step by step
Step 1: Start by mixing everything you need for the meatloaf.
Step 2: Next, lay the bacon strips over the top evenly and brush them with the glaze to prep them for baking. Then bake the meatloaf while you continue with the rest of the recipe.
Step 3: While the meatloaf is baking, cut up the sweet potatoes into bite-sized cubes and set them aside until it’s time to roast them.
Step 4: Then prep the green beans and set them aside.
Tip: If you’re serving this all together for dinner, you’ll want to put the sweet potatoes in just 10 minutes or so after the meatloaf. And since your oven would be pretty full, you might try sautéing the green beans on the stove top which takes about 5 minutes.
Step 5: When the meatloaf is done, set it aside to cool before slicing it. While the sweet potatoes cool, roast the green beans. After everything has cooled a bit, portion it out into containers to refrigerate for lunches.
Tip 2: Another way to make this for dinner is to do mashed potatoes . They cook on the stovetop, so you don’t have to compete for oven space. To save room, you can also put the meatloaf in a glass baking dish of a similar size.
That way, you’ll have room for a sheet pan of roasted sweet potatoes or for veggies as well. For meal prep, you can just roast each item one at a time. Then you can prep other things you’ll need for the week at the same time while this cooks.
One final tip: My friend meal preps her meatloaf by making mini meatloaf muffins in a muffin tin. This definitely speeds up the cooking time by quite a bit. But be sure and grease the muffin tin well if you’re using lean ground beef.
And finally, I hope you enjoy this as much as we have! If you do make it, I hope you’ll leave me a comment/rating below. And I always love hearing from you here, and over on Instagram where you can tag me at #getinspiredeveryday with your photos.
INGREDIENTS1x2x3x
Meatloaf:
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1/3 cup fine almond flour
- 1/2 cup grated zucchini
- 1/2 cup finely grated carrot
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp onion granules
- 1/2 tsp garlic granules
- 3 slices thin slice bacon - cut in half to make 6 shorter strips
Glaze:
- 1/4 cup sugar free ketchup - I use Primal Kitchen
- 1 tbsp coconut aminos
Roasted Sweet Potatoes:
- 2 sweet potatoes - 1 pound, peeled and diced into 1/2″ cubes
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic granules
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
Roasted Green Beans:
- 6 cups frozen green beans - 1 pound
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp garlic granules
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- Start by preheating the oven to 350ºF and lining a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- For the meatloaf, mix the ground beef, almond flour, zucchini, carrot, egg, salt, pepper, onion, and garlic granules until combined. Shape the meatloaf into a loaf shape on the parchment paper.
- Lay the cut strips of bacon evenly over the top, and tuck the ends under. Brush the glaze over the bacon, then bake until the meatloaf is cooked through in the center, 35-40 minutes, or until a thermometer reads 160ºF.
- While the meatloaf is baking, prep the sweet potatoes by placing them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Then toss them together with the olive oil, garlic granules, and sea salt.
- Next, prep the green beans by placing them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Toss them together with the olive oil, garlic granules, and sea salt. Set both pans aside.
- Remove the meatloaf from the oven and let it cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing it for meal prepping.
- While the meatloaf is cooling, turn the oven up to 425ºF and roast the sweet potatoes until tender, 20-30 minutes.
- Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven, and then place the green beans in. Turn the oven up to broil and cook until nicely browned, about 8-10 minutes. Watch the green beans carefully when broiling, as they don’t take long to go from browned to burned.
- Let the sweet potatoes and green beans cool for 20 minutes or so before portioning everything out into 4 meal prep containers.
- Refrigerate and eat within 4 days.
NOTES
nutrition facts
Healthy Meatloaf Meal Prep
Ingredients
Meatloaf:
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1/3 cup fine almond flour
- 1/2 cup grated zucchini
- 1/2 cup finely grated carrot
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp onion granules
- 1/2 tsp garlic granules
- 3 slices thin slice bacon cut in half to make 6 shorter strips
Glaze:
- 1/4 cup sugar free ketchup I use Primal Kitchen
- 1 tbsp coconut aminos
Roasted Sweet Potatoes:
- 2 sweet potatoes 1 pound, peeled and diced into 1/2" cubes
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic granules
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
Roasted Green Beans:
- 6 cups frozen green beans 1 pound
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp garlic granules
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Start by preheating the oven to 350ºF and lining a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- For the meatloaf, mix the ground beef, almond flour, zucchini, carrot, egg, salt, pepper, onion, and garlic granules until combined. Shape the meatloaf into a loaf shape on the parchment paper.
- Lay the cut strips of bacon evenly over the top, and tuck the ends under. Brush the glaze over the bacon, then bake until the meatloaf is cooked through in the center, 35-40 minutes, or until a thermometer reads 160ºF.
- While the meatloaf is baking, prep the sweet potatoes by placing them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Then toss them together with the olive oil, garlic granules, and sea salt.
- Next, prep the green beans by placing them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Toss them together with the olive oil, garlic granules, and sea salt. Set both pans aside.
- Remove the meatloaf from the oven and let it cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing it for meal prepping.
- While the meatloaf is cooling, turn the oven up to 425ºF and roast the sweet potatoes until tender, 20-30 minutes.
- Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven, and then place the green beans in. Turn the oven up to broil and cook until nicely browned, about 8-10 minutes. Watch the green beans carefully when broiling, as they don’t take long to go from browned to burned.
- Let the sweet potatoes and green beans cool for 20 minutes or so before portioning everything out into 4 meal prep containers.
- Refrigerate and eat within 4 days.
Notes
Nutrition
The recipe Healthy Meatloaf Meal Prep appeared first on Get Inspired Everyday! on March 16, 2020
https://getinspiredeveryday.com/food/healthy-meatloaf-meal-prep/
