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Barbeque Ranch Meatloaf

"A delicious, juicy meatloaf that uses ranch dressing for flavoring. I used my stand mixer to blend everything together, and the loaf does not fall apart when slicing!"

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Why it works: Beef and ranch work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 59 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

1 meatloaf
Prep20 min
Cook1 hr 30 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 350°F (177°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the bulk pork sausage, ground beef sirloin, beaten eggs, dry bread crumbs, chopped onion, and ranch dressing. Mix gently with your hands until just combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into a loaf in a shallow baking dish or on a rimmed sheet pan, leaving space around it.

  4. Cut any large fingerling potatoes in half lengthwise. Arrange the potatoes and baby carrots around the meatloaf.

  5. Bake for 45 minutes.

  6. Spread the barbeque sauce over the top of the meatloaf. Bake for another 40 minutes, until the potatoes and carrots are fork-tender.

  7. Check that the thickest part of the meatloaf reads 160°F (71°C) on an instant-read thermometer. Bake longer if needed.

  8. Let the meatloaf rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving with the vegetables.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + ranchtop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,669 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  3. Pork + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Onion + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,105 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, egg, bread, onion, ranch, potato):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Chiveabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, egg, bread, onion, ranch, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).