I am all about comfort food! I get even more excited when I can make comfort food into a healthy and nutritious meal!
When I first got married, I was on a mission to find healthy recipes Phil would love. I thought, “What man doesn’t love a good meatloaf?!” Heck, even though I eat mostly veg…I love a good meatloaf too!
Over the last few years, I’ve tried various combinations of meatloaf recipes and I’ve liked bits and pieces of each one. I found it was extremely easy to sneak veggies into meatloaf and that turkey meat made for a tasty, “melt in your mouth” bite! Most of the recipes called for bread crumbs only but I loved how my mother in law, Kris, used oatmeal in hers! Genius! Therefore, I decided to do a combination!
All the veggies add a nice crunch as you are eating. Green pepper, onion, and carrots are a must in this dish! I also love to add any extra veggies I have laying around the house like mushrooms or zucchini. This recipe is one of our favorite main dishes and we love to serve it up with my baked sweet potato fries!
I like to think that this recipe is a true Veggie Vesta original creation! I’ve had lots of teacher friends ask for it so I just had to add it to my blog!
I hope you like it!
Ingredients
- 1 to 1.25 lbs of Ground Turkey (we love ground turkey thigh meat from Lucky's Market)
- 1 Large Organic Egg or 3 TBSP of Egg Whites
- 1/2 cup 100% Whole Grain Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
- 1/2 cup Seasoned Bread Crumbs (I have used Hy-Vee Whole Wheat Italian Seasoned but also love toasting old pieces of wheat or sprouted grain bread to use as bread crumbs and then adding about a tsp of Italian seasoning)
- 1 TBSP Toasted Wheat Germ (optional)
- 1 Green Bell Pepper, chopped
- 1/2 cup Carrots, finely chopped
- 1 Small White or Sweet Onion, chopped
- 1/2 cup Mushrooms, chopped (optional)
- 1/2 cup Zucchini, chopped (optional)
- 2 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 tsp. Garlic powder
- 2 tsp. Onion powder
- 1/3 Cup Shredded Colby & Monterrey Jack Cheese (optional)
- 2 TBSP of Tomato Ketchup (for inside loaf)
- 3 TBSP BBQ Sauce (for inside loaf), I use additional BBQ sauce for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take a glass baking dish (I use 2 quart size) and lightly spray with cooking spray/oil.
- Combined all ingredients together by hand in a large bowl. Form into loaf and place into pan.
- Cook for 45-50 minutes.
- Pull out and cover in BBQ sauce or ketchup. Place back into oven for 5 more minutes.
- Cool 5 minutes before serving.
- Enjoy!
Notes
If you use 93/7 ground turkey then it is about 215 calories for 1/8 of a loaf. If you use 99% fat free ground turkey then it is about 170 calories for 1/8 of a loaf.
If I am not using ground turkey thigh, I use the 99% turkey meat. This will have about 3 grams of fat, 18 grams of protein, and 17 g of carbs per serving.
This recipe is excellent!!! The layer of flavors are wonderful.