Gluten Free Italian Meatball Loaves

      I love this time of year! The beautiful autumn colors that brighten all the trees in my neighborhood, the crunchy leaves that decorate my front yard and the rainy, chilly nights that call for warm fuzzy socks to keep me warm. In our house this means, a crackling fire in the fire place, a mug of hot cider and good ole comfort foods to fill our bellies! 

      My husband especially loves this time of year, because he knows I'm going to cook one of his favorite dishes. He loves meat loaf! I personally have never been a meat loaf kind of gal. Just the thought of ketchup on baked meat, yuck! (Can you tell I'm not a ketchup fan?) So I of course had to put my own Italian twist on the old fashion America dish and make it gluten free! I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does! 

Italian Meatball Loaves 

Ingredients:

2 lbs lean ground beef

3/4  to 1 cup gluten free bread crumbs * see note

3/4 cup gluten free pizza sauce

1/4 tsp plus a pinch of kosher salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 egg and 1 egg white

1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Set aside Toppings

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup gluten free pizza sauce (warm before topping)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Mix all the ingredients together very well except for toppings,(shredded mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup of gluten-free pizza sauce.)

2. Divide and roll meat in to 2-3 inch even meat balls and place into a 12 cup medium muffin tin.  Make sure you fill all 12 cups evenly. You may want to place a cookie sheet under muffin tin just in case of spillover.

3. Bake for about 30 minutes or until meatball loafs are no longer pink in middle, and a meat thermometer reads 160°.

4. Remove from oven and sprinkle on desired amount of mozzarella cheese on each loaf, place back into the oven and continue to bake for about 2 minutes or until cheese has melted. 

5. Remove from oven and spoon on warm pizza sauce. Serve with potatoes and a seasonal green vegetable.


*How to make your own gluten-free breadcrumbs

Take 2-3 slices of  Udi's bread or you preferred bread brand. Toast the bread to a medium - dark, but not burnt. Let the bread cool and place in food a food processor and process till they become fine breadcrumbs. This will make about 1 cup of breadcrumbs.
To make it Italian bread crumbs add 1-2 Tbls of grated Parmesan cheese and about 1 1/2 tsp of Italian seasoning. I usually triple this recipe and freeze what I don't use up to 3 months.

Why the pizza sauce and not regular tomato or spaghetti sauce you ask? Pizza sauce gives it a little bit more spicy kick to it, without displeasing the kids sensitive pallets, and the more you read, the more you'll find out that I'm truly all about spice! 

Spicy Mamma signing off!  ;)