You might be thinking, “Why would I make my meatloaf in the slow cooker?” It’s true — the oven is a perfectly great place to cook a meatloaf but sometimes you might need that oven space for something else, like a cake, or a side dish! Or maybe you have open oven space but you’re going to be gone all day and want to come home to a delicious freshly cooked meatloaf. Boom, the crockpot can do that for you. Maybe, just maybe, you want a totally fuss free dinner complete with meatloaf AND potatoes that you can set and forget until it’s time to eat. Well, great news, this Slow Cooker Meatloaf and Potatoes recipe certainly has you covered there.

You could use this method with pretty much any beef-based meatloaf mixture you like but this one here is a pretty classic, straightforward version. The mixture is two pounds of ground beef, a chopped onion, some garlic, parsley, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, milk, Worcestershire sauce, two eggs, and a heaping handful of breadcrumbs. Standard but delicious.

You want to mix all that together and with meatloaf your hands are your best tool. Don’t overmix but just get it all nice and combined.

(And maybe chop your onions a bit smaller than I did. Learn from my mistakes.)

Then go ahead and shape your meatloaf mixture into a loaf. Pat it into shape, but don’t compress it too much.

Place it on a large piece of foil and then fold that foil up around the loaf, shaping the edges to create a “dish” for it to cook in.

And then place it into your slow cooker alongside a pound and a half of baby potatoes.

But we’re not done with those potatoes yet; we want them to be deeeelicious. So drizzle them with melted butter that’s tinged with some minced garlic and salt. And then cover that baby up and let it cook for about six hours on low.

A meatloaf isn’t a meatloaf without a ketchup glaze on top (at least if you’re asking me), so in the last half hour of cooking time, stir together some ketchup and brown sugar and brush it over the top before you close it up again and let it finish cooking through.

By the time you uncover it, that glaze will have caramelized and the meatloaf will be cooked through but still deliciously juicy. Oh, and those potatoes will be tender and singing of garlic-butter. And all you had to do was press a few buttons!