Meat Loaf with Mushroom Gravy

One of the great features of my cast iron pans is the ability to throw them in the oven. There are many existing recipes that I use that I started converting from baking dishes to cast iron.

One of the first recipes I started making was meatloaf. There are many variations of meatloaf that you can do to keep it interesting but I’ll cover a basic meatloaf here. So to start off, what’s the benefit to making meatloaf in cast iron? It’s the way that it gives you a much better outer crust to your loaf. Often times in a baking dish, meatloaf can get a lot of moisture in it and it’s also semi-firm. In addition, it just becomes a super efficient meal as you have less dishes to do. You can even get really lazy and mix your meatloaf right in the cast iron pan leaving you with just the pan to clean up later.

Lastly, I’m including a gravy sauce that just puts the finishing touches on this meal. Once you get used to using this, leaving it off is like eating Thanksgiving turkey without gravy. You just have to include it once you try it.

Side note, you can make a 3 pound version of this loaf by just adding another egg and another pound of meat and slightly increasing other ingredients. I often eyeball this as this recipe doesn’t require too much precision.