this homemade meatloaf is SCD diet friendly and paleo, made with dates and organic tomato sauce.
Meatloaf is not something I had a lot growing up, as common of a dish as it may seem. I only had meatloaf occasionally, and so for most of childhood actually, I wasn’t really sure if I even liked meatloaf. I now know: I LOVE a good meatloaf.
There’s just something about meatloaf. It definitely checks those comfort food, home-y boxes. Perhaps that’s why I had an itching to make while we’re all self-isolating because COVID-19. I had a few packs of ground beef in the freezer, and I wanted to do something different. Meatloaf is a bit trickier on the SCD diet, or if you’re paleo, simply because you won’t be using store-bought ketchup– but it’s totally do-able, and the taste is amazing!
To make the ketchup-like sauce for this meatloaf, you’ll be using date sauce– which, if you have ready to go, amazing. If not, I’ll tell you exactly how to make it in the post below. I also have a separate recipe to create date sauce, which you can use for many different baking and cooking purposes. It’s not a bad thing to always have on hand, stored in the fridge.
Nonetheless, you’ll be whipping up a very simple mixture of softened medjool dates and tomato sauce, with a couple of spices thrown in, to create this perfect saucy, tomato-y mixture which you’ll be slathering all over your meatloaf. The saucier, the better, is that not what they always say???
I keep this meatloaf recipe quite simply, of course you want your sauce cause what is meatloaf without some sort of ketchup-like-sauce, but besides for that, I don’t see any reason to add almond flour or coconut flour, although you might see meatloaf recipes out there that do call for it. Instead, you’ll just be frying up half an onion with some fresh garlic to mix in to your ground beef.
Serve your meatloaf with cauliflower rice or perhaps even better, mashed cauliflower a la mashed potatoes (but if you can tolerate potatoes, than go crazy why don’t you and make those mashed potatoes!).
homemade grain free meatloaf: ingredients
sauce
- 5 medjool dates pitted & softened
- 1/2 cup of tomato sauce (SCD legal/your choice)
- 1/2 tsp of paprika
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1/4 tsp of cumin
- black pepper to taste
- 2 tsp of apple cider vinegar
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
meat
- 1 – 1.5 lb of ground beef
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 a red onion
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp of toasted sesame seed oil
- 1/2 tsp of paprika
- 1/4 tsp of salt
homemade grain free meatloaf: how to
- Start by preparing your sauce. If you already have date sauce prepared, you’re good to move on to the next step. If not, you’ll want to pit 5 medjool dates, and soften them in boiling water for 5 minutes or so. Once they’re softened, blend them in a food processor adding a bit of the leftover date water to thin them out.
- Add 1/2 cup of tomato sauce to your date sauce, and combine well with your spices, garlic and apple cider vinegar. Set aside.
- Chop up half a red onion, and sautee it with the minced garlic on a cast iron until the onions and garlic are browned.
- Place your ground beef in a bowl, add in your cooked onions and garlic, all your spices, 1 egg, and 4 tbsp of your tomato-date sauce. Mix everything well, and form the ground beef into a loaf dish, lined with parchment paper.
- Pour 1/3 of the remaining sauce on top of the meatloaf before your put it into the oven.
- Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, remove from oven, and add another 1/3 of your sauce. Place back in oven.
- Bake for another 20 minutes and add the final 1/3 of your date-sauce to the top of your meatloaf. Finish off in the oven for 10-15 minutes.