When I married my husband I acquired a few recipes from his Mom that were his favorites, this one is an adaption of one of those recipes. For those of you that have met him, you know he is just about as picky as can be, but this recipe is for sure a winner at our house and supper fast to cook once it’s prepared. I love that I can pre-prepare this recipe and have it in the refrigerator to just toss in the Instant Pot set and forget about an hour before I am planning on having dinner.
I start by thawing my ground beef (since all of the ground beef I use is generally frozen). While the beef is thawing, I mix the eggs, Ritz cracker crumbs (or bread crumbs), tomato sauce, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder together. I have come to start using ground up Ritz crackers instead of bread crumbs in a lot of recipes since I generally have them on hand. If I use these I generally skip adding in the additional salt. I used pizza sauce since that is what I had open in the fridge today, but I have also used spaghetti sauce for this recipe before.
Once the ground beef is thawed I mix this in with the above mixture, and then place it in the fridge so it firms up a little bit prior to forming it for the meat loaf.
While the meat mixture is in the fridge, peal your potatoes and cut them into 1″ sections. Place them in the bottom of the instant pot with the beef broth. Then place the trivet on top of the potatoes. For a fun variation of this use red potatoes!
Once the trivet is in place, you want to make a foil plate to catch the meat drippings. I use 2 pieces of foil and fold the sides in then place it inside the Instant Pot on top of the trivet. Make sure the foil tight along all sides, you want a room within the pot for air to circulate to create the pressure for cooking.
Next grab your meat mixture out of the fridge and start forming the meatloaf! Split the mixture in half. Using the first half, make a hamburger type patty over the trivet, leaving about a half an inch around the foil for drippings. Then top the round meatloaf bottom with ham slices. I generally try to do 2-3 layers of ham.
Cover the ham with the remaining half of the meat mixture, and pat down to make similar to a hamburger patty.
This completes the prep process, if you are making this ahead of time like I am this is the time to cover your inner pot with a silicone lid or with foil prior to placing in the fridge.
When you are ready to cook your meatloaf, place the inner cooking pot into your Instant pot and set the pot for 35 minutes on manual high pressure. If you stored your inner pot in the fridge first prior to cooking, do not worry about adjusting time, but know it will take slightly longer since your pot isn’t starting at room temperature.
If you are not cooking for as many people, I find this recipe is perfect for 4 adults a 2-4 kids, you can half this recipe and decrease your cooking time by 5 minutes. When I am only cooking for 4 adults and no kids I also half the recipe if I am not wanting a lot of left overs.
Once Instant Pot is done cooking, do a quick release and using oven mitts lift up the foil and place the meatloaf on a cookie sheet with edges, depending on how many drippings you have you may want to use paper towels to soak up some of the excess grease.
Over the meatloaf with the shredded cheese and place in the oven under high broil for 5 minutes.
While the meat loaf is broiling add in butter to the potatoes and use a hand mixer to mix in the inner pot liner. Add milk as needed to get the desired consistency for potatoes. You can also add in garlic salt to make garlic mashed potatoes— this is especially good with the red potato variation I mentioned above!
Once the cheese on the meatloaf is melted and the potatoes are mashed your meal is ready to serve!
Ingredients
1.5 Cups Beef Broth
2.5 lbs potatoes
2 lbs Ground Beef
2 Eggs
3/4 Cup Bread Crumbs or 12 Ritz Crackers Crushed
1/2 Cup Tomato Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Pepper
1/8 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/8 Teaspoon Onion Powder
4 Oz Sliced Ham (approx 6 slices)
6 Oz Shredded Mozzarella Cheese