Easy Turkey Meatloaf Cupcakes with Kabocha Squash Topping

These wonderful meatloaf cupcakes look like a dessert, with Mashed Kabocha Squash as the frosting. They are a savory treat with just the right amount of naturally sweet tastes for a perfect balance that satisfies your taste buds and your body. These cupcakes are equally delightful as a casual meal or a gourmet lunch or dinner. Most of all, they’re just plain fun.

Hands-on preparation time: 15 minutes – 1 hour

Total preparation time: 20 minutes – 1 hour

Yield: 10-12 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 cup coconut oil (you can substitute butter, ghee, or our favorite blend: ½ cup coconut oil and ½ cup ghee)
2 cups diced red onion (about 1 large or 2 medium onions)
5 stalks celery, sliced thin
1 Tbsp. thyme
1 Tbsp. basil
2 tsp. ground rosemary
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. fennel
1 tsp. fenugreek
1 cup bone broth (ideally, use flavored or neutral poultry broth or vegetable stock; see note below)
2 tsp. sea salt
1 cup Madeira (You can substitute cooking sherry or a sweet red wine. You can leave this out entirely, but note that it does add a nice, gourmet taste.)
6 strips bacon (cut into small pieces)
1½ lbs. ground turkey (or ground chicken)

Directions

We recommend you make the Mashed Kabocha Squash recipe first, so you can make the turkey meatloaf while the squash is cooking. You can even cook the squash in your slow cooker the night or morning before you serve this meal, so it’s all ready when you get home from work.

Preheat oven to 325º F.

Put coconut oil, onion, celery, and all spices (except sea salt) into a large sauté pan, and set your burner to medium low. Allow the spices to warm up and release their aroma. Sauté until the onion is translucent, then add the bone broth and sea salt. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add Madeira and keep simmering for another 5 minutes.

Now add the cut bacon and ground turkey to the pan and continue to simmer on the lowest temperature setting as you mix everything up well. We like to then transfer the mixture into a food processor with S-blade and pulse it a few times to really blend everything together well. Alternatively, you could pour the meatloaf mixture into a mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon.

Grease a 12-cupcake pan with coconut oil, butter, or ghee. Scoop in just enough to fill the cupcake hole.

Put your meatloaf cupcakes into the oven and cook for about 10 minutes. You’ll know they’re done because they’ll shrink in size and get juicy. You can touch a cupcake in the middle to see if it feels a bit bouncy, like a sponge. Or use a meat thermometer – it’s done when the meat thermometer reads 155º F to 160º F.

Remove from the oven to cool a bit, then place on plates or a serving platter and put the kabocha squash on top like frosting.

Note: Neutral broths are almost flavorless (or perhaps have a very mild flavor) and can be used in a variety of recipes without imposing a meat flavor on the dish. These broths are typically made with bones only and no meat (or very little meat, like oxtail), since the meat is where the flavor is. With neutral broths, you get the health benefits without actually tasting the broth in the recipe. Flavored broths are typically made with bones, meat scraps, vegetables, herbs, and spices; they’ll have some flavor from the meat, vegetables (such as onions and garlic), and spices. They can make really nice sipping broths or the basis of savory dishes but would not be appropriate for making desserts. For health purposes, we are following the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) definition of stock (bones and possibly more meat, simmered from 1½ to 3 hours) and broth (mainly bones, simmered over 3 hours).

Reprinted with permission from The Bone Broth Secret by Louise Hay and Heather Dane (Hay House, 2016); available from Amazon, BN.com, and HayHouse.com.

Check out other Louise Hay and Heather Dane recipes:

Best Brussels Sprouts

The Best Liver Pâté Ever

Mashed Kabocha Squash