Have you ever grilled or baked a batch of easy meatloaf stuffed onions with ground beef? They are so easy and come out really flavorful in your own little onion bowl. Use your own quick meat mixture or fill with Meatloaf Without Breadcrumbs.
You may know How Long to Cook Meatloaf but stuffed inside onions is a new fun way to make dinner. Also, perfect for the grill or even in the oven! Just hollow out the center like a bowl and fill with seasoned ground meat. (affiliate links present)
Stuffed Onions
So we travel a lot, occasionally camp, and love to barbecue especially during the summertime! Anything I can do to make individual servings I will do. It is just fun for the kids and everyone gets their own little meal all wrapped up in tinfoil.
You can just make muffin tin meatloaf, but I think we prefer them inside a vidalia or yellow onion. One day I was trying to figure out what to make with a lot of onions I was given out of a relatives garden and I started experimenting with these and wow.
Stuffed Onions with Ground Beef
I started using onions as little “bowls” when I made these amazing mozzarella stuffed bacon wrapped onions and they were just so heavenly I thought I should use onions more often this way! Next was time to add meat into the center to make it more of a dinner than a side dish and it worked great!
You could make the same mixture with ground turkey or chicken too for a lower fat version but fat=flavor so if you ask me, just don’t. Now if you are a hunter and typically make Ground Venison Meatloaf by all means that would be a wonderful pairing for sure.
Baked Meatloaf Stuffed Onions
We have made these in the oven wrapped the same way and they come out about the same. Just adjust the timing according to how well done you like your meatloaf, but the recipe itself is super simple to make and full of flavor too. I have used this quick meatloaf recipe for years and years and I just love it. It’s a throw together a little of this and a little of that but you just can’t go wrong with it.
How to cut an onion to stuff it?
It is easy to make a bowl out of an onion and they give off so much flavor into the dish too. You first want to remove both hard ends and the tough skin around it as you normally would. In this case though be careful to leave a thick area that is flat on the bottom so your filling doesn’t leak thru.
- Use a sharp knife on the top coring out the center, twisting the whole thing with your other hand going around and around.
- Then use a teaspoon to start scooping more of it out.
- Make sure you leave about 2 layers thick on the outside and a 1/2 inch base
- Hollow out as much as you possibly can from the onion, that is the trick. That will make it as soft as possible when done…but without any holes or cracks.
- Set on a sheet pan when done and get ready to stuff when your filling is ready.
You can fit quite a few on one pan. Makes an ordinary meal fun and exciting for sure. They are so inexpensive too which is great…you’ve just got to try these.
If you love your Ninja Foodi meatloaf just use that and this technique for hollowing out the onion and making room for the beef.
What can you stuff onions with?
Here we explain how to add ground meat. We have added different cheeses into the middle and wrapped them with bacon too which was amazing. Diced up chicken with bell peppers could make a fun way to serve fajitas this way!
How do you store peeled whole onions?
If you wanted to prep these ahead of time you could. You would want a vacuum sealer ideally to keep all the air out or the outsides may dry out a bit or change colors. Using freezer bags you’d want to suck out as much air as possible. Either way store in the fridge for up to a week or so.
Meatloaf Stuffed Onions
Equipment
- 1 knife
- 1 baking sheet
- 1 Bowl
Ingredients
- 6 large onions
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 egg
- 1/2 c bread crumbs
- 1 packet french onion soup/dip mix
- 1 tbsp worcheshire sauce
- 1 c olive oil
- 1 tbsp basil or oregano
Instructions
- Cut small slice off bottom of onions so they sit flat.
- Cut 1/3 off top of onion so you can core out inside and make into a cup.
- Remove outer layer of onions with skin, discard.
- Use a knife to cut a bit of inside of each onion out being careful not to puncture bottom.
- Use a spoon to scrape as much of the inside of each onion out so it makes a cup, but make sure the bottom is in tact free from holes.
- Mix all other meatloaf ingredients together well and form into balls.
- Fill onion holes with meatloaf mixture.
- Get a piece of tinfoil big enough for 1 meatloaf filled onion. Put in middle.
- Pour olive oil on top and on outside of onion, sprinkle a bit of basil or oregano if desired.
- Bring sides up and close tinfoil.
- Put all wrapped and prepared onions on the grill (close), or on a cookie sheet and in the oven at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes or until meatloaf is as done as you’d like it to be.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
