Meatloaf Recipe in the Sun Oven (2024)

Easy 5 ingredient meat loaf – Cooked in the All American Sun Oven!

Being a new sun oven owner, I have been experimenting cooking different types of meals in the oven. My goal is to have a large and varied list of recipes that I can cook in the sun oven, should we need to rely on it in an emergency, since it requires only the power of the sun to operate.
I decided to put the All American Sun Oven to a taste test with my meatloaf recipe and compare to a meatloaf cooked in the house oven.

But I Don’t Even Like Meatloaf!

Meatloaf is an all American favorite. When I was growing up, though, I hated meat loaf. It was one of those dinners I dreaded because I knew I would have to sit at the dinner table until I finished it. Yuch! As a wife and mom, I set out to make a meatloaf recipe that I would not only be able to choke down, but would also actually enjoy!. My meatloaf recipe evolved through many variations, and now I have been happy for quite a while with a very simple recipe.

I finally found that my favorite recipe actually is extremely easy to make. It has five ingredients but lots of flavor.

So what’s my secret to getting lots of flavor with only five ingredients? Pizza Sauce. I make my own and it has lots of ingredients in it, like peppers, spices, herbs, onions and garlic. But I also use canned pizza sauce and still get great results. The other four ingredients are the ground meat, salt, course bread crumbs, and eggs. The amounts will vary depending on how much meat you are using and how big a meatloaf you want. I wrote up the recipe using three pounds of ground meat. The recipe is easily halved or doubled. Since I like to cook meatloaf in the home oven at a high temperature for a shorter time, I also included instructions for cooking it in the sun oven at a lower temperature for a longer time.

I like to have a cooked entree in the freezer for those crazy days, so this was the perfect opportunity to split the recipe and do a taste comparison using the sun oven and the home oven. Remember, foods cooked in the All American Sun Oven will not burn. This is something I learned first hand, already. I thought the meatloaf needed just a few more minutes towards the end of cooking, but I needed to move the oven to a sunny spot as the house was now blocking the sun. After moving the oven, I forgot to go back and check and it was almost an hour later! I thought it would be way over cooked and dried out. But, I am happy to report, the meatloaf was just as moist and juicy as the meatloaf cooked for 45 minutes at 400 degrees in my house oven. Now that is a good thing! Especially for people easily distracted, like me.

Now, I am the first to admit that I have a lot to learn about food photography. But I still want to show you how beautiful these meatloaves turned out. It would be impossible to tell the difference in the two cooking methods from trying the meatloaf. Both were flavorful and delicious. And I have a ready made entree for dinner one day soon.

When you are ready for dessert, you can cook this Peach Cobbler recipe from Food Storage Moms, in your All American Sun Oven, too.