This spinach mozzarella meatloaf is one of our favorite recipes to double for the freezer. Not only is it full of real food and healthy ingredients, but it’s also easy to make and perfect for your freezer. Make a double batch today!
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Early spring might be the busiest time of the year for me. With multiple kids playing ball, working hard to plant my garden, and the basic clean up after winter, I need quick menu options to fed my family or our diet goes downhill in a hurry. This Spinach Mozzarella Meatloaf has long been a staple at my house. It comes together quickly and freezes well. I love having a loaf in my freezer for super busy days! It makes meal time a snap. And best of all, it’s a delicious way to sneak in some healthy spinach AND use up the surplus in my garden.
ALDI is my top local grocery store choice. I am encouraged every time I go there by more and more organic options. I love that I can get in and out of the store in a hurry. And they have such reasonable prices! Feeding four hungry kids is expensive and ALDI helps me keep the grocery budget manageable. I buy a lot of my groceries in bulk, but ALDI fills the gap when I need fresh fruit and other ingredients.
So Good You’ll Make Double Batch of this Spinach Mozzarella Meatloaf!
To make this meatloaf, finely chop spinach and onions and press garlic. I like to use fresh spinach in this recipe, but you could also use frozen spinach if you prefer. Then, simply mix all ingredients in a big bowl. I mix up meatloaf with my hands {or get a kid to do it}, but you can certainly use a spoon. Call me weird, but I enjoy smashing meatloaf ingredients together by hand.
Form loaves and put them into loaf pans. Bake for 60-75 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the internal temperature of the Spinach Mozzarella Meatloaf is 160 degrees. Once it’s cooked, let the meatloaf rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.
Enjoy with a well-deserved glass of wine. $2.89 a bottle Winking Owl from ALDI is honestly one of my favorite budget wines.
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How to make, freeze and eat Spinach Mozzarella Meatloaf!
I highly recommend that you double the recipe and add one loaf to your freezer for a busy day. It’s not much more work to prep two meatloaves and it saves a lot of time down the road. If you’d like to double the recipe for an extra loaf you have two options for freezing and serving day.
1. Freeze the loaf uncooked, and then simply thaw and cook the day you’d like it. Just bake at 350 degrees for 60-75 minutes as per recipe instructions.
2. Or, bake the meatloaf first, cool, and then freeze. I usually cook both and then freeze the cooked meatloaf. Then, I simply have to reheat the frozen meatloaf on the day I want to serve it. It cooks a lot faster {about half the time} if you thaw it in the fridge overnight before you reheat it. But, in all honesty, I have put these meatloaves in the oven totally frozen and cooked them too. It takes about an hour if you start with a frozen meatloaf. Whichever method you choose, make sure you cover the meatloaf with aluminum foil before cooking, if you decide to reheat the already cooked mealoaf!
Spinach Mozzarella Meatloaf - One Loaf
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground beef, I recommend organic, grass-fed beef like this from ALDI
- 1/2 - 5 ounces packaged fresh organic spinach, chopped fine
- 2 cups bread crumbs
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1/2 an onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves crushed garlic
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp salt
- freshly ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a bowl, mix the beef, spinach, bread crumbs, 1 1/2 cups cheese, egg, onion, garlic, and salt. Transfer to loaf pan.
- Bake 75 minutes in the preheated oven, to a minimum internal temperature of 160 degrees F. Top with remaining cheese to serve.
Notes
This ingredient list is for one loaf. If you'd like to make two loaves, just double the recipe.
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Sound yummy! I'll have to try this.
My kids don't normally go for spinach, but they like this!!
YUM!!! We are going to have to try this version. Mozzarella sound yummy, but we always have montjack on hand so that would most likely get used instead.
Gotta love allrecipies.com. I get daily emails with ideas I want to try, we just need to be home more often than we are lately.
hello michelle,
your spinach mozzarella meatloaf looks delicious!! thanks for sharing the recipe. aldi is my favorite grocery store.
have a nice weekend,
regina
Oh my gosh this looks delicious! Why did I never think of adding ingredients? I am going to try this and all other sorts of flavors in my meat loaf!
Adding spinach is a great idea! I could also see myself making smaller pans of this for the two of us using your recipe.
Yes! I should have said that in the comments! But my original recipe is big enough for a smaller family to make two loaves out of. Thanks, Kelli!
Looks delicious! I’ll have to try it out soon!
OH MAN! This looks awesome! Can’t wait to try this! BTW. Iowa is the place to be 🙂 except when it’s bitterly cold like it was a couple weekends ago.
The cold can just get on out of here!! At least it hasn’t been nearly as bad this winter as the last two!! I’m so glad for a reprieve and a warmer winter.
Hi
Can you tell me please if it’s 2 cups of fresh breadcrumbs or the dry packaged breadcrumbs ?
Many thanks, I look forward to making it once I know.
Hi Julie, I use breadcrumbs I make myself out of my old bread that’s passed its prime and then store in the freezer. You could also use panko style breadcrumbs too. 🙂 Enjoy.
If I only want to make one loaf do I cut recipe in half?
Yes, Casandra. 🙂
When you make extra for the freezer, do you cook before you freeze? In either case, how do you thaw/prep for serving?
I have the same question.
Hi Meghan,
I usually cook both at the same time, but you can also freeze it raw if you want. You can either thaw overnight in the fridge and then reheat before serving, or you can pop it in the oven totally frozen too (takes about an hour at 350 to warm up if it’s totally frozen). It’s like cooking a frozen meal you bought at the store. The lovely thing about this recipe is it is totally flexible. I just made it again last night and froze an extra! We love this meatloaf. 🙂
Hi-is there any way to add a tomato sauce topping?? I only think of meatloaf with red sauce. If you think it’ll taste good??
Hi Tina! I’ve never tried it like that, but it’s your taste buds. 🙂 I say try it! You could always leave the sauce on the side to see what you think before putting it on the entire meatloaf. 🙂 Let me know how it worked out!!
I don’t understand the portions for the spinach- is it one half ounce to five ounces of spinach? Or? Thanks!
Hi Kristin, it’s half of the 5 ounce container, or 2 1/2 ounces. I will make that more clear. Thank you!
My daughter and I make freezer meals and included this recipe. Instead of making loafs we opted to use the muffin tins. We simply filled the slots, froze the pans, and then transferred to ziploc baggies. We can make as many or few as we needed by pulling out the number of “muffins” – one per serving. They froze very well.
I made meatloaf muffins for the first time last week too! They are pretty great, aren’t they. Thanks for sharing!
If you make the muffin sized ones do you cook them the same amount of time as the loaves?
How long do they last in freezer? How long do u recommend freezing?
Hi Sheilah, 3-4 months is probably as long as you’d want to keep meatloaf in the freezer, though I’ve probably had some last for five months too. 🙂
I made this for dinner. We loved it. I did change one thing. I used one pound of ground beef and one pound of ground turkey. This is now my favorite meatloaf recipe. Can’t wait to try meatloaf sandwiches tomorrow with the leftovers.