TURKEY AND VEGETABLE MEATLOAF
DON’T BE A CHICKEN, be a turkey.
Nothing quite says homey like turkey meatloaf. You don’t see it a lot in restaurants and I don’t feel like anyone is ever like, “YAY TURKEY MEATLOAF” but then you dig a fork in, begrudgingly stick a bite in your mouth, and then involuntarily blackout and house several slices—at least this happens when it’s as good as mine!
Ok, so a few thoughts and notes on this recipe for ya. I made this with my son in mind but then I ate so much of it I couldn’t possibly coin this as a recipe just for babies. Let’s say it’s great for, dinner, family dinner, kids—anytime you need a homemade easy meal.
I love this one for my kid not just because it’s turkey but because of the three cups of vegetables mixed into it. This wasn’t my first time making this. The first time I left the vegetables whole (or diced in the case of the butternut squash) but while it held together it fell apart easily. When planning for my son, I like to make food that he can pick up bite-sized pieces of without them crumbling all over the place. That said, I tried a new approach and puréed the vegetables before mixing them in. This worked great!
To make life even easier, knowing parent life has enough going on, I used frozen vegetables (which I thawed before using). I just wasn’t feeling like breaking down a butternut squash when it was going to get puréed anyway. Keepin’ it easy and loving it!
TURKEY AND VEGETABLE MEATLOAF
Ingredients
Instructions
- In your food processor, combine your peas, corn, and butternut squash. Pour 1/2 a cup of your chicken stock over them and blend. Every 30 seconds, add in another 1/2 cup of your chicken stock until it’s all in. Continue to blend until your vegetables have become a purée—about 3 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 350º.
- Put your ground turkey in your mixing bowl.
- Season it with your salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Use your spatula (or hands if you wanna get down and dirty—make sure to remove your rings and put them in a safe not near the drain place) to mix it all together.
- Add your panko, egg, mayonnaise, dijon, and soy sauce and mix it all together.
- Pour your vegetable purée over your ground turkey mixture and use your spatula to fold it all together until you have a fully evenly incorporated mixture.
- Spray the inside of your loaf pan with your oil spray. Then, place your loaf pan on top of your baking sheet.
- Use your spatula to scoop your turkey vegetable mixture into your loaf pan. Now you have a couple of options here, I liked the idea of a big top to my loaf so I piled on all of the turkey vegetable mixture on top little by little and used my spatula to shape it. That is what you are seeing in the photos. You can do a smaller loaf (which will cook faster) and use the excess to make turkey meatballs or mini burgers.
- Bake until your meat thermometer reads 155º when dipped into the center of your loaf—about 1 hour and 30 minutes if you do the full loaf. FYI, poultry is fully cooked at 165º. When you take it out of the oven at 155º it will continue to raise in temperature as it sits. Taking it out of the oven after it his 165º will cause it to get a bit dryer.
- SOMETHING TO TRY. the top of the loaf is always my favorite part. It’s that crispiness that I love. I wanted to have more of that feel so I tried slicing the finished loaf and then baking the slices for another 10 minutes to get that feel on the sides (kinda like toasting bread). It worked great if you want to try something a little different.
