BBQ Meatloaf Minis

I know, I am behind on giving you a recipe.  Of course, the trouble was that I have not been cooking very much during the summer.  We grill out a lot and so I can be very, very lazy.

I did see this recipe in the April/May 2013 issue of Taste of Home magazine and I tried it.  It has two elements that appeal to me.  The first is that it is incredibly easy.  The second, which is really important for us, is that it is easy to get the right serving size.  

BBQ Meatloaf Minis

6 oz. pkg Stuffing Mix

1 cup  water

2 Tbsp. Hickory smoke-flavored barbecue sauce

1 lb. of ground beef

Combine ingredients and put the mixture in (are you ready?) a muffin tin!  Yes, a muffin tin.  Now - here is my first suggestion.  They say to put the mixture in an ungreased muffin tin.  I think that it depends on what ground beef you use.  I, of course, did not read carefully enough the first time through and I sprayed Pam over the entire muffin tin.  I think that if you use less than 90 % ground beef that you don't need to spray but with my 90%, the minis would have stuck to the pan.  Also, you could use ground turkey and then I would also spray the muffin tin.  

Okay, I forgot to take a pic so here
 are muffins in a muffin tin

Bake at 375 degrees for 18-22 minutes (meat thermometer at 160 degrees).  Then take them out and cover each section with a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese.  Bake 2-4 minutes longer to melt the cheese.  

Serve with additional barbecue sauce.  

So, the next change is that I somehow did not have any shredded cheese.  I just took 3 slices of sharp cheddar cheese and divided each piece into 4 pieces and put one piece on each section.  An easy substitution would be to use fat free cheese.  I used a serving spoon to get each meatload mini out of the muffin tin.  

About the additional barbecue sauce, Silent Sam and I agreed that the sauce overwhelms the mini meat loafs. We thought it was fine without it.  

I was ready for SS to turn up his nose at this recipe but he didn't. We both liked it.  The stuffing mix adds enough of an herbal taste that makes it interesting.  I might fool around a little with the barbecue sauce at the beginning.  I might at 3 tablespoons just to see what happens.  You do not taste the barbecue sauce in the end product with 2 tablespoons.  

The best thing is also that the serving size is so easy.  The serving size is 2 "muffins".  With a salad and vegetable, it is plenty.  

Per serving (with recipe as written) 330 calories, 17 g fat (7 g sat. fat) 67 mg chol. 668 mg sodium, 21 g. carb., 1 g fiber, 21 g. protein. ( I think that if you changed the ground beef and cheese, you could save calories and carbohydrates) 

I hope you like it!

Thanks for reading!