How to make turkey meatloaf

To help your meatloaf stay together add things in like eggs and bread crumbs because they are key ingredients that bind meat stick together. Another reason why your meatloaf may be falling apart is that it is overcooked.

2. Add moisture at every step. Don’t skip adding eggs, ketchup, tomato paste, mustard, Worcestershire, barbecue sauce or some combination of wet seasonings. They don’t just add flavor and texture, they help make the meat super juicy.

The main cause of a mushy meatloaf is too much bread and milk for the amount of meat. To fix the issue, try reducing the amount of bread and milk by half. Another fix is to double the amount of meat.

I opt for 1/4 cup of mayonnaise per 1-1/4 pounds of ground meat, but you can use plain yogurt, ricotta cheese or spreadable herbed cheese such as Aloutte, as well. Just keep the moisture-giving ingredient to the same proportions as this recipe or the burger will be so wet, they’ll fall apart.

You cannot judge that turkey burgers are cooked to a safe internal temperature by color—they can have no trace of pinkness in the center and still not be cooked through. And if you cook them too long, they will absolutely dry out—they simply don’t have enough fat to withstand overcooking.

This can be mitigated by leaving it alone and letting the meat develop a nice sear before breaking it up into little bits, but even that doesn’t help lessen the loss of moisture one usually sees when cooking ground beef.