Meatloaf and Potato Skillet
Meatloaf reworked into a one-pot camp dinner: crumbled beef, instant potatoes, and a BBQ finish.
- calories
- 780
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 87
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 30 min
- water
- 400 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1 lb | cooler item, cook it the first night out |
|---|---|---|
| Ground pork sausage | 1/2 lb | bulk, not links |
| Onion | 1 medium | diced at home |
| Green pepper | 1 | diced at home |
| Celery | 2 stalks | diced at home |
| Breadcrumbs | 1/2 cup | |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 2 cups | |
| Powdered whole milk | 3 tbsp | |
| BBQ sauce | 1/3 cup | squeeze bottle or single-serve packets |
| Worcestershire sauce | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Oregano | 1 tsp | |
| Thyme | 1 tsp | |
| Red pepper flakes | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | 1 tsp each |
Method
- Brown the beef and sausage in the pot over medium heat, breaking it up as it goes. Ten minutes, until no pink is left.
- Add the diced onion, pepper, and celery. Cook another five minutes until they soften and give up water.
- Stir in the breadcrumbs, garlic powder, oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and the Worcestershire. The crumbs soak up the fat instead of letting it pool.
- Pour in the BBQ sauce and let it cook down for two minutes, scraping the bottom.
- Add 400 ml of water and the powdered milk. Bring it to a boil, then pull it off the heat.
- Stir in the potato flakes a half cup at a time until it thickens. Let it sit two minutes before eating.
A meatloaf needs an oven, a pressure vessel, or both, and none of that fits in a pack. The flavors survive the trip anyway. Everything that made the loaf worth eating — sausage fat, the pepper-onion-celery base, the BBQ glaze — works just as well loose in a pot, and the potatoes go in the same pot rather than steaming alongside.
The potato flakes replace the binding job the eggs and the loaf shape were doing. They pull the fat and pan juices into something you can eat with a spoon. Fresh milk becomes powdered milk stirred into the boil, and the diced vegetables get cut at home so camp is browning meat and stirring, nothing else. Meat in a cooler means this is a first-night dinner.
Packing
Dice the vegetables at home and bag them. Mix breadcrumbs, potato flakes, powdered milk, and all the dry seasoning into one bag. Meat stays frozen in the cooler and goes in the pot on night one.
Variations
- Swap the ground beef for two foil pouches of chicken and skip the browning step entirely. That makes it shelf-stable.
- Grate hard cheese over the top instead of stirring in BBQ sauce.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/instant-pot-meatloaf-and-baked-potatoes