Easy and Delicious Meatloaf

If You Make This Meatloaf Recipe, You Will Never Cook A Dry Meatloaf Again!  

This is another favorite recipe of my mother’s. And this was one of the few meat dishes that my father really loved. When I make meat loaf, this is the recipe that I usually use. I think this recipe came from one of my mother’s wonderful friends, Anita Lapidus. The first time I had this was at a fund raising dinner at the wonderful temple we belonged to in Plainfield, New Jersey, Temple Beth El. They served this meatloaf as the main course. We loved it, so my mother started to make it regularly. Now, I make it for my mother, she freezes the leftovers, and uses it for dinners during the winter.

• 2 pounds of good chop meat – I use 85% lean
• 2 tablespoons Lipton’s onion soup mix
• 8 ounces unsweetened applesauce
• 1 small can tomato sauce (8 oz.), plus enough ketchup to make 1 ½ cups
• ½ cup plain bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl, mix together the meat, the onion soup mix, the apple sauce, about 1/2 cup of tomato sauce and ketchup mixture, and bread crumbs - as gently as possible. Spoon some of the reserved tomato sauce mixture on the bottom of a 13 x 9 in. Pyrex baking dish. Put the meat mixture in the dish. Shape the loaf so that it is about 10 inches long by about 7 to 8 inches wide by about 4 inches high. Brush the remaining tomato sauce mixture all over the top and sides of the meatloaf. Bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes.