Yeah, baked a meatloaf seems maybe a bit specific versus saying “I made a meatloaf” or “I cooked a meatloaf”, but that’s about it.
What would be strange is to use the same terminology as bread- i.e. “I baked a loaf of meat” That has to sound weird to everyone.
I boiled a meatloaf.
Not recommended.
Exactly, when saying you “made” or “cooked” a meatloaf, it is inherently implied that it was baked in an oven, I do not think there are many other ways to cook a meatloaf than by baking it.
I would say “I made a meatloaf”. I’d only use “baked” if I was specifically talking about the “in the oven” stage of making it. Whereas for bread “baked” would refer to the whole process and I’d use a different turn of phrase for the “in the oven stage”. Except perhaps for oven temperature, though even “I baked this baguette at 450F” feels a tiny bit to me like I’m saying my kitchen is awfully hot. (I’m ridiculously fond of misinterpreting language for humorous effect though.)
I bet if you air-fried it, it would turn out fantastic.
Heck, now I want to try to air-fry a meatloaf. Seriously.
Baked ham?
I have and do say “baked a meatloaf” without having any cognitive dissonance. Some websites make a technique distinction between baking and roasting (higher vs. lower temperatures, covered vs. uncovered), but it is definitely an odd little linguistic grey area.
You do realize that an air fryer is a toaster oven with a convection feature…ala baking.
By some definitions of what is and isn’t baking, a meatloaf wouldn’t qualify – baking things like bread, cake, cookies, etc. involves using the heat of the oven to generate chemical reactions in the ingredients to produce the finished product.
But, from a casual, everyday use of the word, while I probably wouldn’t say “bake a meatloaf,” it’s not a term that would feel entirely “off” to me.
They are not always identical. On my model oven, well it has 2 models, gas and electric, the electric one convection bake will employ an auxiliary convection heating element when the main element cycles off, while convection roast will just run the fan. The idea is with baking one wants close to a constant temperature with little variation, with roasting more variation is acceptable. I would think some other ovens also do something like this.
For gas however it operates the same either way (and confirmed that with the manufacturer as their manual doesn’t mention that), though there are a button for convection bake and convection roast (for both modes the convection fan only runs when the burner is off, the oven depends on the gas convection from the burner to ‘mix’ the air when the burner is on).
My air fryer has separate bake and air fry options. It’s baking much the same way that frying something is just baking it on a stovetop in a pan. Those seemingly minor differences are what define different cooking methods. And they lead to different results. I’ve found with chicken, for example, if I air fry it rather than baking it (in the same oven) that it turns out very different (the air fry makes it a lot crispier).
In other words, my theory is that if I air fry I will get a much crispier top, and I am curious to see how that will work. Maybe it’ll ruin it, or it might make it interesting.
I don’t know about you but my meatloaf has binders (like bread crumbs or something similar, eggs, and so on) that bakes just like bread would. If it was just a pound of hamburger in a loaf pan then I’d see your point but I think that meatloaf as people usually make it (to my understanding) is literally baked, with much of those same chemical reactions that other baked goods would have. So it would still qualify.
Actually, I was considering a sous vide meatloaf yesterday. It’s supposed to be good but it is finished under the broiler so it’s also kind of baked.
Just keep things confusing, I’ll point out that meatloaf is a loaf, in the same sense as a loaf of bread, and sometimes made in a loaf pan. And it is baked.
But we are kinda wired to to pick up on odd usage of words and expressions. This is important so we can tell if aliens are walking among us or we’re actually living in a VR world.
I’d probably say that I ‘made a meatloaf’; but ‘baked’ doesn’t seem odd enough to me that I think I’d notice.
And I hear or see “baked chicken” from time to time; including as one of the options at the deli of a grocery near me: they have fried, rotisserie, and baked. I also sometimes see “baked fish” and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen “baked ham”.
I don’t think most modern ovens make any distinction between baking and roasting; though I have also read somewhere that “roasting” used to be in front of or over an open fire, not in an enclosed oven. By that meaning, hardly anybody roasts anything any longer. – trying to google it now does produce a reference to that, but also produces varying descriptions of the definitions of the words, some of them having to do with the temperature involved and some of them with the consistency of the item before cooking.
“I baked a meatloaf” and “I made a meatloaf” are not the same thing. I can envision buying a meatloaf, already mixed, formed, and otherwise prepared, but uncooked, from a store, and then taking it home and putting it in the oven. In that case, I would have baked a meatloaf, but not made it. In fact, in that situation, I’m not sure what phrasing I could use, but “I baked a meatloaf”.
That is a useful bit of pedantry. It’s like a “take and bake” pizza; you didn’t “make” it, someone else did, but you did bake it.
The same way I can stick a Stouffer’s frozen lasagna in the oven and bake it per the instructions. I most certainly baked a lasagna. I didn’t make it, however. (Stouffer’s makes frozen meatloaf too now that I think of it.)
Said another way, the important part of preparing a meatloaf is assembling the specific combo of ingredients and spices in the pan according to your favorite magic recipe. The heating/cooking part is anticlimactically simple.
So we emphasize the “make” and de-emphasize the “bake/roast.”
To answer the OP, if someone says they made a meatloaf, I assume they mixed everything up, put it in a pan, threw in the oven. My dad used to mix up a meatloaf and leave the uncooked thing in the fridge for mom to throw in the oven. I guess she “baked” it. I don’t think anybody would assume it was boiled, grilled, microwaved, or made in some different way.
We have two airfryers. The first one looks like an egg, sorta. You pull out a tray and can shake your fries etc. for even cooking all around. If you want to make your meatloaf in that, it’ll probably be circular. The other looks like a toaster oven. We can fit an 11x13 in it, I think, but not if it has protruding handles.
I do find that you can subtract maybe 1/3 of the time. If a recipe says 400F for 30 minutes, I can probably do 400F for 20 minutes in the air fryer and get the same result. It’s that air whipping around in there.
The thing that surprises me is the fat. For example we make fries (we don’t add oil; we cook them as is, but I think they have some oil coating them). That stuff seems to aerosolize or something. That’s fine for the waistline, but cleaning the units is very difficult/impossible. As much as Mrs. L and I love the things, I’m waiting for some of that impossible-to-reach-to-clean stuff to go rancid or something.
Kmart used to sell lots of baked ham there at the popcorn/frozen Coke/submarine sandwich stand.
Huh. I don’t tend to use “roasted” all that often for meats in the oven–though this might be because we own a separate roaster. It’s a standalone unit (like a toaster oven) with a ceramic coating and a lid that has a small air vent you can open or close.
It does occur to me that I never refer to baking a steak when you cook it in the oven. But I would also never call it roasted. It’s just “cooked in the oven.” Ham, turkey and chicken are all baked in an oven, as are casseroles.
As for the OP, I agree that I wouldn’t normally refer to baking a meatloaf. I guess I might use the distinction between a store-bought one I baked and one I made, but that’s not consistent with anything else I cook. I would still say you bake a cake, pizza, bread, casserole, etc., even if you also made them.