Grilled Bacon Wrapped Beer Cheese Stuffed Meatloaf

Perfect Pairing:  Freezer meals

I really wish I had a better picture of these suckers.  Let’s just review… they are meatloaves stuffed with a homemade beer cheese, topped with bacon and an awesome glaze and then grilled.  What could possibly be bad?  Except my picture of them, of course.  You see, I had people waiting to eat and well photography was just low on my priority list at that moment.

I made these during our family vacation this summer.  It was actually kind of a staycation since we were all at my parents’ place.  We had an absolute blast playing in and around the water, boating, relaxing, laughing, eating, swimming, floating, playing bags, tea parties, kiddo dance parties, etc.   We also had the third annual Lake House Chef Challenge, but that is another post another time.  I have to share some of my favorite photos from the week.

My mom and I figured that we served about 400 meals that week.  If you know us you know that it was not frozen pizza and premade stuff.   We like to make things difficult apparently.  Below is the menu for the week.  You will notice that a lot of the items are featured on this site.  We had a big folder with all of the recipes so we were ready to go each day.

In case you were wondering, this is what one of the refrigerators looked like.  I am sure my mom will be thrilled I am sharing this.

We pretty much stuck to the menu! The lake is about 15 miles from a decent grocery store so we had to be REALLY prepared.  We also wanted to make as many things ahead of time as possible.  One of the things we made in advance was this dish.  I made the beer cheese and meatloaf mixture earlier in the month, assembled them, wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer.  I let them defrost in the fridge and then topped them with the bacon and made the glaze the day we grilled them up.  It worked out really well. 

FYI…. The beer cheese is pretty awesome as a dip with pretzels.

 

Grilled Bacon Wrapped Beer Cheese Stuffed Meatloaf

Adapted by Lindsay at Perfecting the Pairing from SeriousEats

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

For the beer cheese:

·         8 oz sharp cheddar or Colby jack cheese

·         ½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

·         2 garlic cloves

·         1 tsp dry mustard

·         Sprinkle of cayenne pepper

·         5 oz dark beer (like Negro Modelo)

·         Salt, to taste

For the meatloaves:

·         2 lb ground beef

·         1 lb ground pork

·         2 eggs

·         1 ½ cup quick cooking oats

·         4 cloves garlic, chopped

·         1 small onion, grated

·         3 Tb tomato paste

·         1 tsp pepper

·         1 ½ Tb kosher salt

·         8 pieces of bacon, cut in half

For the glaze:

·         ¾ cup ketchup

·         2 Tb sriracha, more to taste

·         2 Tb yellow mustard

·         1 Tb Worcestershire sauce

·         2 Tb soy sauce

·         1 Tb honey

·         ½ tsp garlic salt

Directions:

To make the beer cheese, add the cheese, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, dry mustard, and cayenne to the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse to combine.  Slowly pour in the beer until it becomes a smooth mixture.  Transfer to a bowl and chill completely until ready to use.

In a large bowl combine the ground beef, pork, eggs, oats, garlic, onion, tomato paste, pepper and salt.  Knead with hands until just combined.  Break off a teaspoon sized bite and microwave for about 30 seconds, until cooked, and taste for seasoning.  Adjust if necessary.  Section the meat into 8 equal portions.  Gently flatten out one portion (be careful to not compress the meat) and wrap it around a ping pong ball sized amount of the chilled beer cheese.  Form into a meatloaf shape.  Place two half slices of bacon across the top of the meatloaf in an “X” shape. 

Mix the glaze ingredients in a small bowl until combined.  Set aside.

Preheat the grill to medium heat and then shut off one side of the burners.  Place the meatloaves on the cooler side of the grill to cook.  Do not flip throughout the cooking process.  Grill until the meatloaves are cooked throughout, about 20 – 30 minutes.  About halfway through the cooking process brush on the glaze.  Add more glaze to taste.

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