In my post on what to do with leftovers, I mentioned meatloaves as being one of the best things to make to save almost any leftovers you have! In the following post, I'll be sharing the general steps to making a meatloaf with leftovers and click here for the full recipe of the meatloaf (actually made it with my leftovers!).
Step 1 The Base
So for a veggie loaf base you usually need a starch like legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas..) or grains (rice, couscous, bulgur..) or both! If you have soup of those ingredients just make sure you drain the broth out really well. In general, this is what vegan meatloafs are based of. In the pictures you'll see that I have much more than regular leftovers that's because I forgot to take a picture of the leftover rice and beans but you get the deal! Usually, depending on the size of meatloaf you're going for, you can use up to 4 cups in total of legumes and grains. Honestly though, whatever you have just use it and if anything you can make 2 loaves!
Step 2 The veggies
Then, in addition to that it's nice to add some sauteed vegetables like onions, green onions, carrots, mushroom, celery, garlic and honestly anything you have! Even if your cooked legumes or grains already have vegetables it will really enhance the flavors when you add some to your loaf. Because the vegetables in your legumes are what gives your legumes alone good taste but adding more veggies will make the loaf as a whole even richer and more delicious! Feel free to add salt and spices along the way like paprika and italian seasoning.
Step 3 The flavourings
Here's where you can get really creative and make crazy delicious things. Or really strange tasting mixes. You'll learn over time! Great flavouring agents for the loaf include:
Nutritional yeast (which is known for it's cheesy flavour but also goodness in general)
Ketchup or tomato sauce or tomato paste
Miso (yummy salty flavour)
Herbs either dried or fresh (thyme, basil, oregano, parsley)
Spices (paprika, cayenne pepper)
Soy sauce
Salt!
To be honest, if you compare with vegan loafs online you'll see that you don't need too many flavourings. What makes the loaf tasty will be the texture and the natural tastiness of your veggies. But of course it never hurts to add ketchup and soy sauce! Just don't overdo it.
Here you'll see I used nutritional yeast and some garlic powder. Nothing crazy. Since they were dry ingredients I mixed it with my binding agent (walnuts). But if I wanted to use ketchup or soy sauce (wet ingredient) then I would've added it to my grain or legume mix.
Step 4 The binding
The binding agent is really important in your loaf because it's what will make it hold together nicely plus give it a nice taste. There's a lot of different things you can use to bind everything together such as:
Toasted walnuts ground into flour: this addition really enhances your loaf, ever since I tried it, I practically always add toasted walnuts. However, toasted walnuts usually won't be enough to bind. Most likely you'll have to add other stuff.
Gluten flour: I'm sure many of you aren't great fans of gluten but in meatloafs it will makes a difference and provide a yummy texture. I usually eyeball the quantities depending on my base texture so this is more for people who have experience working with gluten already. If you have no experience, don't worry there are many "seitan meatloaf" recipes out there you can try that'll give you proper measurements.
Bread crumbs: this is a classic in loafs and works well especially when combined with flour
Ground flax seed
Flour: literally any flour I think can work, I've tried buckwheat flour, oat flour, almond flour, white flour, whole wheat and I'm pretty sure the others you have in mind can work well too! Perhaps not coconut flour though - I think we both know why
Ground walnuts & ground rice crackers!
Also very important for your meatloaf not to end up super mushy but rather have a nice thick consistency: don't over mash/blend your veggies and base ingredients. This will make a really soggy mix and it will hard to bind it well because it'll be so soft. Usually when this happens to me, adding gluten flour really helps because it's a great binder for that kind of stuff but with the other binders it'll be tough to save.
PS: I like to add some salt to the binder to balance the taste so it doesn't lose it's flavour.
Step 5 Mix it all together and shape the loaf!
Alright you made it to step 5. Now you can mix everything together (usually everything except the binder first and then you add the binder). Once you have a nice fairly thick almost dough like consistency go ahead and shape it! I've learned that cooking a loaf on a tray is better than putting it in a bread pan because it allows the loaf to cook nice and evenly. I tried it and it's true, my loaves came out nicer. So shape it in a loafy kind of form and bake at 350F for 45 minutes. Always pay attention to the loaf as efficiency of temperatures vary between ovens.
Here I grinded everything separately because I wanted to be sure my veggies were well chopped but normally I would've pulsed the beans and rice together to make a nice paste. At this point I would usually add the wet flavourings!
Mix the bases all together, add the binding agent and once you have a thick and slightly firm consistency, shape your loaf!
Step 6 Add a topping/glaze! (optional)
Although most meatloaves have a topping this is totally optional. Sometimes I found my loaves tasty even without a glaze! For a glaze you can either find a nice gravy recipe or classic bbq style glaze (ketchup, soy sauce, molasses, maple syrup) and you add it on top of your loaf once it's out of the oven and you put the loaf back in for about 10 minutes. Always pay attention to the loaf as efficiency of temperatures vary between ovens. And then you're done!
Enjoy !! :)
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