This Bread Hack Will Elevate Your Meatloaf

Meatloaf is a textbook comfort food, reminding many of us of the family dinners of our childhoods. While the name is far from appealing, a well-made meatloaf is a thing of beauty: typically a mix of ground beef or pork, onions and garlic, fresh and dried seasonings, eggs, and breadcrumbs that's packed into a loaf pan and baked until juicy and fragrant. Meatloaf is a perennial favorite of adults and children alike, and it's ideal alongside other comforting classics such as mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese.

Preparing meatloaf at home is an easy process, but it's not without its pitfalls. Many cooks complain that meatloaf turns out dry, whether that's due to using meat that's too lean, not using enough breadcrumbs, overmixing the meat, or not letting the meatloaf rest before cutting into it, as The Spruce Eats points out. On the other end of the spectrum, the dish can often tend toward being overly greasy. Cooks attempt to remedy this issue in various ways from cooking the meatloaf on a sheet pan so the excess grease can drain off to removing the meatloaf from the oven before it's done and draining the excess fat out of the loaf pan.

As it turns out, there's another hack that will help make greasy meatloaf a thing of the past and will also leave you with a delicious snack at the end of the process. All it requires is a couple of slices of bread.

Lots of cooks have their own particular meatloaf tips and tricks, such as glazing it with ketchup or wrapping it with bacon. But have you ever heard of baking meatloaf on top of a few slices of bread?

According to Cuisine At Home, meatloaf can tend towards greasiness, since it's usually baked in a loaf pan and there's nowhere for the excess fat to go as it melts away from the meat. Enter the bread tip: The site suggests lining your loaf pan with a few slices of white bread, which will absorb the excess grease. And while Cuisine At Home suggests discarding that fatty bread before serving, Food52, which also tried the technique and traces it to cookbook author Sara Moulton, has another idea: Enjoy that crunchy, fat-laden toast at the end of cooking, or use it to make an indulgent sandwich with slices of the meatloaf. A moist — but not greasy — meatloaf that comes with its own built-in snack? Sign us up.