Baked meatball subs are loaded with melted cheese, savory pasta sauce, and tender meatballs overflowing from a perfectly warm hoagie roll.
You can make meatball subs from scratch with simple ingredients, but you can also easily make baked meatball subs with ready-made ingredients. I am going to show you how you can make either, so your hot and melty sub can be prepared with as much, or as little effort as you care to put into it.
What are they?
Baked meatball subs can easily be made with some fresh hoagie rolls, frozen meatballs, jarred pasta sauce, and shredded mozzarella cheese. It can be an effortless dinner, which let's be honest, sometimes we need. However, if you want to put your own finishing touches on it, you will be rewarded by putting in the little extra effort required to craft your own meatballs and sauce.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Meatballs - Frozen Italian meatballs from the grocery store will work just fine for this easy meatball sub recipe. They just need to be heated with the pasta sauce and added to the sub. However, making homemade meatballs from scratch with fresh ground beef and ground pork certainly makes the best homemade meatball subs.
- Pasta sauce - A 24-ounce jar of your favorite pasta sauce will work just fine with this recipe. However, I believe marinara is the best option. Alternatively, you can make your own pasta sauce which gives you even greater flexibility over the flavors. My pasta sauce recipe is well suited to work with these baked meatball sub sandwiches.
- Shredded mozzarella cheese - A blend of Italian cheeses can be substituted. Topping your subs with Parmesan cheese would be a great addition.
- Hoagie rolls - Small sub rolls can be substituted.
How to bake meatball subs
If using pre-made meatballs, heat them by gently simmering them in pasta sauce until warmed through. Otherwise, mix your meatball ingredients in a large bowl and form golfball-sized meatballs. Cook your homemade meatballs according to your recipe instructions.
Slice hoagie rolls, then place meatballs in your rolls and top generously with pasta sauce, then sprinkle cheese on top of each sub. Then set them in a baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Bake your meatball subs for 10 minutes in a preheated oven set at 400 degrees.
Storing and Reheating Leftovers
Leftover meatballs and pasta sauce can be stored in an airtight container in your refrigerator for up to one week and reheated when needed. However, the bread does not store well. If you have leftover subs you are best off discarding rolls and using fresh sub buns when you reheat your leftovers.
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Baked Meatball Subs
Equipment
- Baking dish
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds meatballs
- 24 ounces pasta sauce (marinara is best)
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 6 hoagie rolls
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Pour pasta sauce into a medium saucepan on the stove and add meatballs. Set over medium heat and simmer until meatballs are cooked and heated through.
- Place hoagie rolls in a large baking dish and fill rolls with meatballs and sauce, then top the meatballs with shredded cheese. Cover the baking dish tightly with aluminum foil and place in the oven for 10 minutes.
- Remove subs from the oven, discard the foil and let cool slightly prior to serving.
Notes
Nutritional Information
This recipe was originally published May 13, 2020.
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