Blue Cheese Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting

Recreate one of the most boring meals ever (meatloaf and mashed potatoes) and surprise your family with cupcakes for dinner!

If you’ve ever wanted to have cupcakes for dinner, here’s your chance! Blue Cheese Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting is a fun way to jazz up what would otherwise be a pretty ordinary meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes – blah. Surprise your family with these – the kids will love it!

I love the combination of blue cheese and rosemary with beef, but you can easily switch up the combination of cheese and fresh herbs to custom design the meatloaf cupcake of your dreams! Cheddar cheese and basil instead of blue cheese and rosemary would be delicious, as would goat cheese and parsley. You could even substitute ground chicken or turkey for the beef if you want. A lot of meatball recipes call for breadcrumbs as a filler, but I like to keep my meatballs gluten-free so I use cooked quinoa or rice instead. In this recipe, I wanted an extra boost of protein so I opted for quinoa. Each of these Blue Cheese Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting has a whopping 19 grams of protein!

Wrapping meatloaf in bacon is a classic preparation but it wouldn’t work well in this recipe for Blue Cheese Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting and would likely result in a greasy dish with undercooked bacon. I decided instead to wrap the meat in prosciutto because it’s cured, and safe to eat raw, so there is no danger due to undercooking. It also makes the bottom layer of the cupcakes more visually appealing, and at the same time, adds a nice salty layer of flavor.

Blue Cheese Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting would be fantastic served on a pool of warm gravy, but I like them, as pictured above, with Roasted Garlic Ketchup. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of piping the mashed potatoes on top of each meatloaf cupcake, simply spread the potatoes on top, just as you would icing on a regular cupcake. If you swirl the potatoes around a bit, and garnish them with fresh herbs, they’ll look almost as pretty as the piped mashies.

Blue Cheese Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting

 

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Author: QUEEN OF MY KITCHEN

Serves: 12 servings

Ingredients

• MASHED POTATO FROSTING
• 2 large russet potatoes (about 1¾ lb. total weight), peeled and cut into large chunks
• 3 tablespoons cream cheese
• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 1½ tablespoons butter
• ½ teaspoon salt
• MEATLOAF CUPCAKES
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1½ cups cooked quinoa (see notes)
• ½ cup (3 ounces) crumbled blue cheese
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 medium cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 12 slices of prosciutto (6-ounce package)

Instructions

1. Place the potatoes in a large pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Drain and place in a bowl. Add the cream cheese, sour cream, butter, and salt. Stir and mash all the ingredients together until the cream cheese and butter are melted and the potatoes are smooth. Cover and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and brush the cavities of a standard 12-cup muffin pan with olive oil.
3. In a large bowl mix together the ground beef, quinoa, blue cheese, onion, egg, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper. Form 12 meatballs (2½ ounces each). Cover the meatballs with a slice of prosciutto and then press them firmly into the cupcake cavities.
4. Bake on the bottom rack of the oven for 15 minutes.
5. Remove the meatloaf cupcakes from the pan. Spread the mashed potatoes evenly over the top of each, or pipe them on decoratively using an over-sized, closed star piping tip.
6. Serve with roasted garlic ketchup or gravy.

Notes

Cook quinoa in beef broth instead of water following package directions. ⅓ cup of uncooked quinoa should yield about 1½ cups cooked.

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