Turkey Meatloaf: An Update to a Mid-Century Classic Comfort Food

I’ve always been a picky eater, a trait that made my parents miserable when I was a kid. So miserable that my father once told me that he hoped I would one day have a child who was even picker than I was.

Well, Dad got his wish, and then some. In fact, my daughter elevates “picky” to a new level. There are many foods that she refuses to try simply because they “look like they taste bad.” Like mashed potatoes. I mean, who doesn’t like mashed potatoes? (So much for the influence of her Irish heritage.)

So, as a mom with an uber-picky eater in the house, I’ve had the difficult task of finding and making healthy foods that my daughter will eat. Believe it or not, I actually got lucky with an updated version of a classic family comfort food: turkey meatloaf.

Meatloaf again? Yuck.

Several months ago, the upcoming release of the 1950 U.S. census made me want to celebrate by cooking a few midcentury classic recipes for my family. For some reason, the first dish that came to mind was meatloaf.

Now, growing up, I despised meatloaf. It was a regular dinnertime staple in our house, and I hated everything about it: the smell, the taste, the texture… yuck. Why anyone would want to eat what was basically a blob of meat was beyond me.

In my defense, my mother – God love her – was NOT the best of cooks. So, I suppose judging all meatloaf by my mother’s meatloaf probably wasn’t fair to meatloaf.

It would, however, be fair to say that my mother’s meatloaf was one of the dishes that made me give up beef and pork at the age of 16. And I haven’t eaten it (willingly) since then.[efn_note]I can no longer digest beef, which I discovered on a couple of occasions when my ex thought it would be funny to feed it to me without telling me. The results weren’t pretty.[/efn_note] If I wanted to give meatloaf a second chance now that I was an adult, I would need to make it beef-free with ground turkey.

All Ground Meats Are Not Created Equal

Long thought to be healthier than ground beef, 93%-lean ground turkey has half the saturated fat of ground beef and is less likely to dry out than the 99% lean variety.[efn_note]”Ground Turkey vs. Ground Beef: Which Is Healthier? Here’s What a Dietitian Says,” Eating Well, 14 September 2021, https://www.eatingwell.com/article/7917690/ground-turkey-vs-ground-beef-which-one-is-healthier/[/efn_note]

Ground turkey is usually a good substitute for ground beef, and I’ve typically had good luck with using it in place of ground beef in most recipes. In most cases, a 1-to-1 substitution of ground turkey for ground beef works perfectly well.

However, this wasn’t the case with turkey meatloaf. To say that my first few attempts were a disaster would be an understatement. Good thing my husband has almost no sense of taste (I kid you not) and will eat pretty much anything, so at least the food didn’t end up in the trash can.

Why was this such a difficult switch? For starters, ground turkey doesn’t have as much robust flavor as ground beef. Seasoning a turkey meatloaf in the same manner as a beef meatloaf leaves it bland and flavorless. Basically, it was a tasteless blob of cooked meat.

Give It Space

My first turkey meatloaf was a disaster. I baked it in a glass loaf pan like my mother used to do (I even used my mother’s glass loaf pan), but it basically turned my meatloaf into turkey soup. The meatloaf was nearly submerged in liquid. It was gross.

To solve this problem, I switched to cooking turkey meatloaf on a baking sheet instead of in a loaf pan. This allows the juices to run off the meatloaf without creating soup.

Turkey meatloaf can stick to the pan and be a mess to clean up, so I recommend lining your baking sheet with foil and adding a light coating of nonstick spray. A butter-flavored spray can add a bit of subtle flavor, but I prefer a light canola or olive oil.

Herbs and Spices: Fresh or Dried?

I almost always recommend using fresh herbs and spices rather than dried ones for most recipes, but not in turkey meatloaf.

Fresh, chopped onions are a great addition to ground turkey because they add moisture to the meat. However, another reason that my first turkey meatloaf was so awful was that I tossed in raw chopped onion, thinking it would cook along with the meat. It did not. The onions were still crunchy when the meatloaf finished cooking.

So, if you prefer to use fresh onion and garlic in your turkey meatloaf, be sure to sauté them in a bit of oil before adding them to the meatloaf mixture.

I prefer to use dried herbs and spices in turkey meatloaf. Perhaps the memory of crunchy onions is still too fresh, but I really think dried herbs and spices add more flavor to the ground turkey.

Mix It Up… But Not Too Much

As you mix together the ingredients, be careful not to overdo it. Overzealous mixing can lead to a less tender meatloaf.

And yes, I did this. More than once. The meatloaf was still edible, but not as tasty as it could have been. For what it’s worth, I have a bad habit of dumping all of the ingredients into a pile in the bowl and then mixing everything together. A better solution is to spread the ingredients around the bowl so that not as much mixing is required. Lesson learned.

Keepin’ it Moist

In my humble opinion, meatloaf is all about that sauce. And with ground turkey, the more flavor, the better.

I’ve tried the usual ketchup variety a few times… and it was fine. But for added flavor, I like to substitute half of the ketchup for BBQ sauce. My husband likes Sweet Baby Ray’s and puts it on almost everything (which is often repulsive), but whatever you have on hand is fine. Mix in a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar for sweetness. And if you want to bring the heat, try adding a dash of Tabasco or red pepper flakes.

Be sure to cover the ENTIRE meatloaf with sauce in order to lock in the juices and keep the meat moist. Plus, you’ll want some sauce in every bite.

Final Thoughts

Bringing a classic dinnertime comfort food back to the table with lean ground turkey has been an enjoyable change of pace for my family. My husband likes it (not always a compliment, given his lack of a sense of taste), and my daughter actually eats it without complaining.

Turkey meatloaf does require a bit more added flavor than the beef variety, but with a few extra herbs and spices, the result is a moist, flavorful dish that (I hope!) your family will love.

What is your favorite classic comfort food? Tell us about it in the comments!

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Nutrition information is provided by Verywellfit’s Recipe Nutrition Calculator.

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