Smoky Grilled Meatloaf

One of my favorite meals to grill is Smoky Grilled Meatloaf. The whole family loves it and it is extremely easy to throw on the grill for an outstanding dinner.

Meatloaf is a huge part of family’s meal rotation! There is just something that is so warm and comforting about eating meatloaf, especially throughout the fall and winter. I bet most of us have memories of our moms and grandmothers working in the kitchen to prepare meatloaf for the family dinner.

We turned the traditional oven-baked meatloaf into a fun, and delicious dish with a tangy, sweet kicker.  Of course, we had to cook it on the Big Green Egg.  Seriously, does everything just taste better when it is grilled? 

Meatloaf = comfort.

🔥 Grilling Instructions

Step One: Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl, but reserve half of the BBQ sauce for later use. Use your hands to mix.

Step Two: Form the meatloaf into a bread pan. I placed it in a stone loaf pan and also some disposable aluminum pans and both worked well. The cleanup of the disposable pan was much easier, though.

Step Three: Brush the remaining BBQ sauce on top of the meatloaf.

Step Four: Set the grill to 350 degrees on indirect heat. For gas grills, turn off the center burners. For Kamado grills, add the plate setter.

Step Five: Grill for 45 – 60 minutes.

💡 Recipe Tips

This recipe adds some sweetness from the BBQ sauce mixed in with the meat. The chopped red pepper also has a surprise hidden sweetness to balance off the little bit of onion. We have tried it with green peppers before, but I think the sweet red ones have a much better flavor for this dish.

Spencer also says that the red pepper makes it not look like dog food. Alrighty then! You just have to love teenage boys!

I have tried this recipe with many different kinds of BBQ sauces and they all work. Add a spicy BBQ sauce if you are looking for a little extra kick.  We used this Fun Honey Barbecue Sauce from Stonewall for a sweet treat!

If you’re making something else on the grill today, add this meatloaf later.  It only takes a few minutes to prepare, and cooks well in the BGE.  We typically grill this on Sundays and then divide up the meat for Jason’s lunches. It reheats well, it’s quick, easy and most of all, comforting!

One other thing to note with this recipe is that the meat comes out incredibly tender.  We have not been very successful at using this for meatloaf sandwiches. The loaf just falls apart in a delicious, tender mess!  

🧑‍🍳 Equipment

Another component of that is the stoneware loaf dish that we cook it in. If you have never used them, they can be life changing as they bring back a lot of moisture to your food. The ugliness of the stone in the picture represents years and years of use. They say it is seasoned once it looks like that. My stoneware is ugly so let’s call it seasoned. Just kidding. It is seasoned and it is my go-to bread pan. 

One word of warning, though. Don’t use the stone over direct heat. I always use it on indirect heat, so the grill acts more like the oven

Let me know how you like this recipe in the comments below.  What did you do to change it?

Related Recipes

Smoked Potatoes – Nothing goes better with meatloaf than potatoes. You’ve already got the grill on, so give these garlic butter smoked potatoes a shot. You’ll love their flavor.

Grilled Onions – You’ve got some onions in the meatloaf, but a side of sweet onions over the hot grill work perfectly! This is really quick to whip up and complement the meatloaf’s flavors.