Meatloaf Meets Buffalo Chicken: Blue Cheese-Stuffed, Hot-Sauce Glazed Chicken Meatloaf

Fun, individual buffalo chicken "cupcakes" feature a melty blue cheese interior and a wing sauce glaze. [Photograph: Jennifer Olvera]

What happens when buffalo chicken wings meet meatloaf? You end up with these: individual, blue cheese and butter-stuffed chicken meatloaves, baked in a muffin tin and glazed with a hot and garlicky homemade wing sauce.

The meatloaf base takes inspiration from thisawesomeCook's Illustratedrecipe, which incorporates a bit of powdered gelatin and chicken stock to help the loaf stay moist and tender as it cooks.

To my base mixture, I add celery seed and celery (to my mind, celery is an essential part of the buffalo chicken experience).

Then, I place about two tablespoons of the meat mixture into six cupcake tins and make a well in the center that I fill with nuggets of crumbled blue cheese and butter. Mounded and sealed with the remaining ground chicken mixture, the individual, cupcake-inspired loaves are slathered with additional wing sauce and baked in the oven. What results is meat with a crunchy interior, burnished top and gooey, cheesy center.

And if you want to eat these guys with your fingers for that true chicken wing experience, I won't hold it against you.