This recipe for Chorizo Mini Meatloaves is shared by Megan Keatley of Health-Bent. You probably recall that Megan’s shared quite a few fantastic recipes with us Food Renegades in the past, including these Grain-Free Cheesecake Swirl Brownies. Megan has been out of the kitchen and off the internet for a few months while moving to a new house and working on her dream kitchen remodel, so she hasn’t shared a recipe here in a while. Thankfully, though, she’s settled nicely into her new pad and is back to regularly contributing Paleo recipes to the Health-Bent site. So, if you’ve missed her here (or there), go check out her latest recipes. Thank you, Megan, for the recipe!
Meatloaf just takes too long. It’s pretty inexpensive and definitely wholesome, but sometimes the 1+ hour cook time makes it seem like you’re making Sunday supper and not a quick weeknight dinner. So, how do we fix that? Bake the meatloaf mixture in muffin tins instead of a giant loaf pan. Shake up the traditional meatloaf ingredients a little bit, and you’ve got weeknight get-together meatloaf for everyone that packs great flavor and is ready to hit the table in less than an hour.
Chorizo Mini Meatloaves with Chipotle, Tomato Relish
Yield: ~18 mini loaves
The Players
For the Meatloaves
- 1 lb fresh chorizo, casing removed
- 1 lb ground beef from grass-fed cows (where to find grass-fed beef)
- 2 T adobo sauce (from a can of chipotles in adobo, read the labels, some contain gluten)
- 2 eggs from pastured hens
- 3/4 c almond flour (where to find almond flour)
- 1 large onion, diced
- 5 cloves garlic, finely diced
- tallow
For the Sauce
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes
- 1 chipotle in adobo sauce (1 pepper, not 1 can)
- 2 T olive oil (where to find quality olive oil)
- handful cilantro, chopped
- salt (where to find real, unprocessed salt)
- lime
- avocado
The How-To
Preheat your oven to 350F.
Saute the onion and garlic in tallow, until translucent. Place 1/2 the onion/garlic mixture in a large mixing bowl and the other half in the smallest bowl of your food processor.
In that same large mixing bowl that you just added the onion and garlic to, add and mix together the chorizo, ground beef, eggs, adobo sauce and almond flour. Your hands will do the best job of incorporating the mixture, so don’t even bother trying with a utensil. Get out 2 normal sized muffin tins. Dollop the meatloaf mixture into the muffin tins, filling them up about 3/4 of the way. If you fill them to the brim, the rendered fat will spill over and make a terrible mess in your oven. Place the tins in the oven and bake until you see rendered fat in each muffin tin, along with a slightly browned, crusty bottom on each loaf, about 25 minutes.
While the meatloaves are baking…
To the saute pan, add the tomatoes. Let them cook until the skin starts to blister and blacken and you see them pop open. Add the tomatoes, along with the chipotle pepper, olive oil and some salt to the food processor (Where the onions and garlic have been patiently waiting for you.) and pulse until a nice saucy consistency forms. If the sauce is too wet for your liking, you can pour the contents into the saute pan and let it simmer down until some of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the cilantro.
Garnish the meatloaves with a spoonful of relish, sliced avocado, a pinch of salt and a squeeze of fresh lime.
For more delicious recipes similar to this one (grain-free and dairy-free), I highly recommend the Paleo Eats Cookbook.
Written by a Cordon Bleu trained chef, this book is packed with hundreds of recipes to get you started on your journey to ancestral eating. Recipes are grain-free, dairy-free, soy-free, sugar-free, and use healthy fats. They’re also super easy to follow and can be prepared in 30 minutes or less!
At the moment, the printed version of this cookbook is 100% free to Food Renegade readers. You just cover shipping & handling.
(photo by Megan Keatley)
Sue Smith via Facebook says
Gosh, this sounds delightful! I just made a meatloaf on Sunday and added chipotle to it, and my kids ate it all within 4 hours. Thanks for another wonderful recipe!
Food Renegade via Facebook says
@Sue — You’re welcome! The good thing about these mini-loaves is that meatloaf no longer has to be a “Sunday” recipe. Even the busiest of us can squeeze these out for a weeknight dinner.
Sue Smith via Facebook says
I see! I also think making these and freezing them for an evening in which we are rushed or tired would be great. 😀
Bryan Galante via Facebook says
Try this on in the little cupcake pans 🙂
Bryan Galante via Facebook says
Tasty Maple Garlic Ginger Turkey Loaf
1 lb ground turkey
2 eggs
Parmesan Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Mozzarella Cheese
Worcestershire Sauce (thats a tough word!… sauce!)
Ground Garlic
Ground Ginger
In a bowl, place the turkey and crack the two eggs, put a thin layer of Worcestershire Sauce on top, a thick later of garlic and ginger, cover with the three cheeses and mix
Place in a deep dish bread pan (I like the glass ones)
Bake at 375 for 1 hour
Vincent DiClaudio Lobascio via Facebook says
did you mean to call them “meatloves” or “meatloaves”? lol
Food Renegade via Facebook says
@Vincent — 🙂 Probably both! It’s rare that a typo is so perfectly Freudian.
Back to the Kitchen: Healthy Living with Real Food via Facebook says
I caught that too-cute 🙂
Melissa says
Just made these for dinner – amazing. I don’t like things very spicy though, so will probably do 1/2 a pepper when I make the sauce again :). Thanks for sharing!
Lindsay says
Do you get the chorizo from a butcher or local supplier? All the chorizo I see at the store has trans-fat and some questionable ingredients.
Alta says
@Lindsay – Whole Foods has fresh chorizo in their meat market. I’d love to find a local organic, grass-fed meat supplier that processes some of their beef into chorizo, but Whole Foods at least has honest ingredients.
And these are definitely something I must make soon!
Patty Pittman says
Just made it and it was AWESOME!
Christie says
I can’t wait to try this recipe. West Wind Farms has a delightful organic USDA grassfed top notch chorizo. I plan to pick some up along with ground beef this Saturday at the Brookhaven Market. May I share this recipe?
Molly says
I just made these for my husbands birthday dinner and they were really good. He loves meatloaf but I don’t as much. But this variation is good. I will make this again for sure.
organic meat winnipeg says
This looks delicious.
jgandb says
I just made the chorizo mini meatloaves & served them with cauliflower “mashed potatoes”
They are fantastic…This recipe is a total keeper…Thank you so much for sharing it
I did adapt the sauce to what I had on hand…Roma tomatoes instead of cherry, and italian parsley instead of cilantro…and i did add one chopped fresh jalapeno to the onion & garlic saute…but hey, any real cook is always gonna snootch a recipe to fit the pantry
Again, thanks so much for sharing this
KristenM says
Personally, I prefer mashed turnips to mashed cauliflower. So yummy!
Virginia G says
I made this last night with some ground bison that I got on sale and some fresh chorizo from Sprouts. They turned out great, although I don’t taste the chorizo as much as I would like. It will be nice to freeze them and have them for breakfast all week. Thanks!
Martha L. says
Made these tonight with grassfed beef from a local farmer and grassfed beef chorizo from the Farmer’s Market. Instead of cherry tomatoes I used locally grown heirloom tomatoes that I had on hand, and I pan roasted them before processing. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly as written. Wow! These are wonderful and the sauce is fantastic!! I will definitely be making these again. . . they’re going into my rotation of go-to foods that I prepare over & over. Thank you!!!
all natural meat winnipeg says
We need more education on the benefits of saturated fats and stop letting the food industry control what we learn.
Rachel @ the minimalist mom says
These were excellent. I didn’t have a muffin tin handy so formed into little slider size burgers and put them on a sheet. Didn’t have time to make the sauce so just served with a bit of chopped avocado and hot sauce.
They were so good my two year old swiped the leftovers off the counter without my noticing. Came out to find him playing in our living room and munching on a mini meatloaf 🙂
L says
Hello
what type of chorizo did you use? beef or pork
thank you
Shannan says
We can’t use almond flour. Would you by chance know how to sub with coconut flour?
Dave P says
Great recipe. I make the same for my kids but make it in a two piece meatloaf pan so the grease drains out and then I wrap it with bacon before I put it in the pan. The kids love it.
Jennie Gunlogson via Facebook says
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Destress Naturally via Facebook says
yum!
Khorae OIivier says
Wow, I love that you changed the traditional meatloaf idea into mini-meatloaves with chorizo meat in a muffin tin! This sounds like such a great idea since my family loves meatloaf but I find myself running out of time to try and cook it as often as they want. The idea to add chorizo to the recipe to add more flavor is such a good one–I will definitely need to try this recipe out soon and see how my family likes it!