Bacon Lattice Wrapped Meatloaf

This will be the fourth meatloaf recipe that I've posted.  They're all a little different in terms of ingredients and complexity.  This recipe has less of a tomato profile and is a variation on a recipe for bacon-wrapped meatloaf found on the Whitney Bond website.  It pairs well with brown gravy, the recipe for which can be found here.  My other meatloaf recipes can be found here:

The Ultimate Comfort Food Dinner: Kicked-Up Meatloaf with Mac and Cheese

Meatloaf in a Minute

Mini Meatloaf Rings

The last one is really a hybrid recipe of meatloaf and stuffed bell peppers but nevertheless, I wanted to establish a repository for my accumulating meatloaf repertoire.

The original recipe recommended that you not use thick-cut bacon with which I agree.  In fact, because I was using an 80/20 beef mix (meat to fat ratio), I actually used center-cut bacon, which is a leaner cut than traditional American bacon. The original author of the recipe also gave some good advice on how best to apply the lattice bacon wrap to the meat loaf, which I followed and have documented below.

The original recipe calls for the addition of Montreal Steak Seasoning.  I always thought that this was a proprietary blend of seasonings sold by McCormick under the "Grill Mates" label, but I was wrong.  It's a customary blend of seasonings that include  garlic, coriander, black pepper, cayenne pepper, dill seed and salt, introduced to the Montreal deli and steakhouse markets in the 1940s and '50s.  You can find recipes for the proportions on the Internet, but I used the store-bought blend in this case.

Ingredients
2 lbs 80/20 ground beef
12 slices center-cut bacon (like, Oscar Mayer Center Cut)
1/2 medium yellow or sweet onion, finely diced (like, Texas 1015 or Vidalia)
1/2 medium red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 medium green bell pepper, finely diced
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs (like, Progresso)
2 tsp garlic, minced
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp Montreal Steak Seasoning (like, McCormick Grill Mates)
1 tbsp ground dried thyme
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire flavored black pepper (like, McCormick)
1 tsp smoked salt (like, San Francisco Salt Company, Cherry Wood)
non-stick cooking spray (like, Pam)

The Recipe
Sauté the onion and peppers in a skillet with the olive oil over medium high heat for 8 -10 minutes until the onions begin to pick up some caramelization. Add the garlic and sauté a moment more. Remove the skillet from the stove and allow to cool.

Crumble the ground beef into a large mixing bowl. Add the sautéed vegetables, balsamic vinegar, ketchup, Montreal Steak Seasonings, thyme, Worcestershire Sauce, the smoked salt and flavored pepper. Add the eggs next and the bread crumbs last.  If you spread out the ingredients in layers over the whole surface of the mixture as you go along, as opposed to just dumping the ingredients in the bowl willy-nilly, it will make for quicker, easier mixing.

Using wet hands, mix the ingredients in as few motions as are needed to get everything blended well.  The more you work the meat, the more likely it will be to fall apart while cooking. 

In the meantime, lay out the slices of bacon in a crisscross lattice fashion on a cutting board.

Form the meat mixture into a loaf shape directly on top of the lattice of bacon, and then wrap the bacon up over the edges of the meatloaf.

I find the easiest cooking vessel for meatloaf is a broiler pan. Treat it with non-stick cooking spray.  Put the rack of the broiler pan upside down over the top of the meatloaf and then simultaneously flip over both the cutting board and broiler pan rack.  Carefully pull the cutting board away and your meatloaf is now right side up on the broiler pan rack, ready for the oven.

Cover with cling wrap and put the meatloaf in the fridge for an hour or more to firm up, but take it out of the fridge thirty minutes before you're ready to begin cooking.  In the meantime, pre-heat the oven to 400F degrees with the rack in the top 1/3 of the oven.

Cook the meatloaf for 1 to 1-1/4 hours and until the bacon is crispy.  Allow the loaf to sit for ten minutes before slicing and, if desired, serve with the gravy on the side.