Can you even call it meat loaf without bread crumbs or some other filler?

As someone who grew up poor, I thought the whole point of meatloaf was to add cheap filler to ground meat to make it "go" further.

Come-on, at least a half of an onion. They're cheap. How about some tomatoes?

Oops, now it's MY recipe.

Also, the relatively tiny amount of sauce mixed into the meat (4tbsp for 4-6 lbs?!) with none on top makes no sense.

Reading with blurry glasses
4 to 6 pounds beef
1 pounds catsup
1 pounds mustard
1,pounds baby teeth idk

I should clean these

No breadcrumbs was my immediate thought... it might not even be that underseasoned (due to the soup mix), but it ain't holding any of its moisture and the texture is gonna be really bad.

It is a loaf of meat, though.

That's RAM, innit? Unless you're on that TB of RAM grind.

Not sure how much seasoning is in a soup mix but doesn't seem like it would be enough for that amount of meat either.

Beef is 3lbs for $20 so it's closer to $30-$40 depending on whether you do min or max

Turkey is cheaper than that

As others said, sides. Most meatloaf recipes also include onions and other veggies in the loaf itself which is why there's a thread of comments here pointing out how this recipe as garbage. This is just a giant dry hamburger. Meatloaf also commonly has milk soaked breadcrumbs to pad the meat out so you don't need as much of the expensive stuff.

Ya normally have some sides with like mashed potatoes and green beans.

If you haven't had good meat loaf, you're really missing out.

Maybe they just forgot to include the bread crumbs?

Well now I'm going to try shredded carrots next time I make meat loaf, that sounds very interesting

I'm convinced shredded carrots is the key to meatloaf. I don't know why but any recipe that doesn't have it sucks.

It probably tastes great. What do you mean by “what’s the deal”? Like, what’s the origin?

It's a cheap and easy replacement for actual seasoning. My family has a recipe for a dip that's literally just onion soup mix and sour cream. It's delicious, but it's really just deconstructed sour cream and onions flavored potato chips with extra seasoning and real sour cream.

It saves some from having spices on hand.

Its essentially just pre-mixed spices. I know people could make the mix on their own, but it's not too far of a jump from things like Garam Masala or Chili Powder (both of which are just pre-mixed spices).

Everyone's been trying to make shit fast and easy for decades and no one knows how to actually cook anymore.