Mini cajun meatloaves wrapped in bacon!

So, as I was riding my bike home from work, thinking about what to do for dinner. I still didn’t do a whole weeks worth of shopping, so I needed to stop at the store to pick up something.

I was going through ideas in my head. I wanted to do something that would be quick, but tasty, that EVERYONE would eat, and not too expensive! Not too hard, right? ?

Then it hit me….my mini meatloaves wrapped in turkey bacon! I’ve only made these once before, and everyone liked it, so I had a plan!

When I got to the meat case, I usually buy 95% lean ground sirloin. They were packaged in 1 pound packages, and I would have had to buy 2 packages at almost $8.00.

Then I saw an almost 2 pound package of ground chuck (which is like an 80/20 ratio) for $3.96, so I ended up getting that. While walking down the aisles, I saw a package of Cajun Seasoning for Meatloaves and I threw that in my basket as well. For around $6.00 I got all I needed. I knew I had mashed potatoes in a box at home, so those were going to be my side dish.

Ingredients

1.8 pounds of ground chuck (or you can use ground turkey, ground sirloin, etc…)
Turkey bacon
½ cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs
½ packet of the Cajun seasoning
1 egg

Mix together all the ingredients, except the turkey bacon. Shape into mini meatloaves. Two of my kids said “I hate meatloaf!” So, I shaped the same exact meat into a hamburger patty, and told them they were having burgers, and they were fine with that! Go figure!

I weighed the meat out at 5 oz. each knowing that it would shrink a little.

Wrap one or 2 slices of bacon around the meat. I baked mine on a cookie rack on top of a cookie sheet, so that fat would drip down. It takes about a half an hour depending on how you wanted it cooked in the middle.

I was worried about the seasoning, because sometimes you get something like that and it’s super salty and ruins the whole thing, but it turned out AMAZING! Everyone was happy, people had seconds, and I have a great leftover lunch today!