Thursday, February 25, 2016

Pizza Pie Meatloaf

Pizza Pie Meatloaf Dinner
Pizza meatloaf is certainly not a new idea, but I’d never tried it before. I had some leftover tidbits in the fridge that would work in some sort of Italian dish, so I went online looking for ideas. Since my husband likes meatloaf and loves pizza, I figured that a pizza flavored meatloaf would appeal to him. Most recipes I found called for a regularly shaped meatloaf with a pizza sauce topping. I wanted something that looked more like pizza, and I found a recipe at Pillsbury’s site.

I made some changes in the recipe. Of course, I omitted the salt. I also used homemade low sodium dried breadcrumbs. Any low or no sodium dried crumbs would work, including salt free matzo meal. I added about a tablespoon of Italian Herbs blend to the meatloaf mixture. For the pizza sauce, you could use a low or no sodium pasta sauce such as Trader Joe’s Marinara or Rinaldi NSA Traditional. Or you could do what I did which was to heat up an 8 ounce can of NSA tomato sauce with a couple of cloves of minced garlic, about a teaspoon of dried basil, and a tablespoon of olive oil. As for the cheese, I used home-shredded mozzarella. But chopped fresh mozzarella would be even lower in sodium. Just be sure to squeeze it in some paper towels because the fresh stuff is quite moist.


Ready for Final Baking
The directions called for baking in an 8 inch round cake pan. I used a Pyrex pie pan and adjusted the baking time accordingly (thinner meatloaf called for less baking time). I think a 9 inch round pan would be good too. Of course, any square or rectangular pan would also work. But being able to cut the meatloaf into pizza-like wedges is half the fun.

Honestly, I think that just about any meatloaf recipe would work as long as you included a hefty dose of Italian Herbs and used an Italian flavored tomato sauce. I topped the meatloaf with sliced mushrooms, green onions, and low sodium black olives. That made it look and taste more like pizza. Finally, I sprinkled the veggies on top of the cheese. More like a traditional pizza.


Hot, out of oven!
My husband really liked the pizza meatloaf. He remarked several times about how good it tasted, and I was happy to have a hit on my hands. One that was very tasty and quite simple to make.

Pizza Pie Meatloaf
(Printable Recipe)


1½ lb. lean ground beef (I used a combo of ground beef & ground pork)
⅓ cup bread crumbs (I used homemade low sodium dried crumbs)
1 tsp. NSA Italian herbs blend
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
2 eggs
1 (8-oz.) can NSA tomato sauce seasoned with 1 tsp. Italian herbs
2 oz. (1/2 cup) shredded cheese* (I used mozzarella)

  1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 8-inch round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray. In large bowl, combine ground beef, bread crumbs, dried onion, garlic powder, eggs and 1/2 cup of the pizza sauce; mix well. Press mixture evenly in sprayed pan. Bake at 350°F. for 30 minutes.
  2. Remove loaf from oven. Drain and discard drippings from pan. Spread top of loaf with remaining pizza sauce. If desired, add other favorite pizza toppings such as green bell pepper strips or sliced olives.
  3. Return to oven; bake an additional 30 minutes or until thoroughly cooked in center and meat thermometer registers 160°F.
  4. Sprinkle top of loaf with cheese.* Bake 5 to 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. To serve, cut into wedges.

*I put the cheese on the sauce and sprinkled the veggies on the very top to make the meatloaf look more like a real pizza.



5 comments:

Dishy said...

Hello old friend! Hope you are very well, Shambo! This is such a clever idea. I've never seen or done anything like it, but it's absolutely beautiful.

bubbie617 said...

Looks delicious, but do you know the sodium count of this recipe as you prepared it? Thanks.

shambo said...

Regarding the sodium count, I did not add any salt to the meatloaf. I used bread crumbs from my own homemade low sodium bread. The sodium content could be lowered even more by using something like unsalted matzo meal. I used no-salt-added tomato sauce for the sauce and used unsalted herbs to flavor it. Really, the only item that had a significant amount sodium was the cheese. I had some regular mozzarella on hand, so I used that. For 2 oz. or 1/2 cup, that would be about 400 mg sodium for the entire meatloaf. Since it makes about 6 servings, that would come out to about 67 mg sodium per slice/serving. The cheese sodium content could be greatly reduced by using fresh mozzarella. It runs between 85 mg - 100 mg sodium/ounce. So that would be about 170 mg - 200 mg sodium for the entire meatloaf or no more than 33 mg sodium/serving.

shambo said...

Christy, good to hear from you. Hope you're well. I was just thinking of you yesterday as I was going through some old posts. Take care.

Italian panettone said...

Wow..Yummy recipe. I will try this recipe. Thank you for sharing.