Tag Archives: Meatball Sub

Join the Meatball Club

Posted on by Standard 2

We can talk about meatball club. We can share recipes & secrets. A meatball sub is great, but a meatball club is epic. (With a small shout out to the meatball melt.) Stack or you’re whack.

A tall layered sandwich called “The Meatball Club,” made with toasted bread, melted provolone cheese, marinara sauce, and meatballs stacked like a club sandwich. The phrase “The Meatball Club” appears in bold wooden-style text at the top on a black background.d black.

🔴🔴🔴

You have to check out this design on TONS of STUFF at TeePublic & RedBubble. Get a T-shirt, a hat, a pink, a sticker, a magnet, an apron, a mug, a clock, socks… and you’re in the club. No questions asked. Maybe share some photos of your homemade meatball clubs.

🔴🔴🔴

🔴 The Meatball Merch 🔴

A close-up of 'The Meatball Club' sandwich, featuring three layers of toasted garlic bread with melted mozzarella cheese on top. Between the bread layers are sliced meatballs in marinara sauce, with more melted mozzarella visibly oozing out. The sandwich is stacked high, and the background is solid transparent.

🔴🔴🔴

Make sure you check out all my meatball posts:

Just a bit of effort for quick meals?

Posted on by Standard 4

I really like to make my own meatballs. Sometimes there store bought frozen ones are fine. Sometimes you intend to have a meatball sub, and end up making a meatball club. (I like my meatballs with lasagna & in wedding soup too.)

The other day we needed a quick dinner so frozen meatballs it was. Still gotta make it good though, right? I like a toasted sandwich bun…. with meatball subs, meatball clubs, pulled pork BBQ, chipped ham BBQ, sloppy Joes, & more.

Oven-toasted meatball sub sliced in half on a small round white plate, served atop a warm wooden surface. The sub roll is stuffed with frozen meatballs, rich tomato sauce, black olive slices, and a gooey blend of melted provolone and mozzarella cheese, lightly browned from broiling. The filling spills slightly from the cut edges, showcasing a rustic, hearty presentation... but also calling to the great eldritch god Cthulhu climbing out of the sea.
Ooey Gooey Toasty Meatball Sub

I had ChatGPT help me format my recipe from my ramblings…

Cheesy Meatball Subs with Garlic-Herb Toasted Buns
Servings: 2 | Prep: 10 min | Cook: 15–20 min

Ingredients:

  • 8 frozen meatballs
  • 2 sub rolls
  • 2–3 tbsp butter, melted
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • ½ tsp onion powder
  • ½ tsp Italian seasoning
  • 1 tsp parsley
  • 1 cup jarred marinara sauce
  • 1 tsp brown sugar (optional)
  • 2 tbsp grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (plus extra for topping)
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • 4–6 sliced black olives (plus extra for topping)
  • 2 slices provolone cheese
  • ¼ cup shredded mozzarella

Instructions:

  1. Cook the meatballs according to package instructions.
  2. Preheat oven to 357°F (180°C). Mix melted butter with garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning, and parsley. Slice rolls and brush the butter mixture onto the cut sides. Sprinkle with Parmesan/Romano and some sliced black olives. Toast for 5 minutes.
  3. Warm marinara in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar, Parmesan/Romano, Italian seasoning, and black pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning.
  4. Place 4 meatballs per bun. Spoon sauce over the meatballs. Add additional olives, provolone slice, and shredded mozzarella.
  5. Return assembled subs to the oven for 5 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly.
  6. Let cool slightly, then serve and enjoy!

Apparently canned black olives are polarizing here according to social media. Would roasted red peppers be acceptable? What about sauteed green peppers or onions? Mushrooms?

What do you do to spice up your quick go-to meals? What do you like on your subs? Yes, I put sugar in jarred marinara sauce. Tell your Nonna to calm down with the carrots and the baking soda. I like the sweetness and the acidity cut. I also use jarred minced garlic occasionally.

Quick Edit to add, had these for lunch today with the leftovers:

Meatball Sub
Meatball Sub
Meatball Melt
Meatball Melt
Meatball Club
Meatball Club
Meatball Trio
Meatball Trio

Ya gotta do it up however you can with what you’ve got!

The Meatball Club

Posted on by Standard 4

So, yesterday I made spaghetti with homemade meatballs. Today, I wanted a meatball sub. I was thinking I still had some good buns from New Year’s day. They were not good. I had already melted the butter. The store-brand white bread was calling to me. A sandwich? No, a club.., Something worthy of shenanigans.

The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese.
Behold: The Meatball Club
The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese. (Slightly more from the top.)
Look at that toasty goodness.
The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese. (Cut open diagonally.)
Open up & say “Mmm!”
The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese. (Cut open diagonally, from the top.)
If you don’t cut it diagonally, you’re doing it wrong.

It seemed to be a hit on various social media platforms, so I thought I’d share the love. If you make one, please, post the photo, tag me (@AiXelsyD13 on just about everything), and let me know how it was!

The Meatballs:

I have shared my meatball ingredient secrets a quadruple of times:

I generally don’t measure, and make them different every time. This time I fried them on medium-high in a large pan on the stove & a tiny bit of EVOO.

The Sauce: 

OK, gonna level with you. I am not Italian. This is going to make some people mad. I use jarred sauce. This was the cheap Aldi stuff. Usually we get that or the Prego Three Cheese. I add brown sugar & Parmesan/Romano shake cheese. Sometimes, I even add shopped garlic, onion powder, or “Italian Seasoning.” This time it was just brown sugar and cheese. I don’t measure. I toss a little in with abandon. I like the sweetness & it cuts the acid.

The Club:

Get your stuff…

  • ¼ stick butter
  • Garlic powder
  • Onion powder
  • Parsley or (Italian Seasoning)
  • 6 or so leftover meatballs.
  • Shredded cheese (I had Gruyere & Swiss, but I would probably go for Mozzarella or Provolone, but the stuff I had was fantastic.)
  • “Shake Cheese” I had the cheap Giant Eagle brand Parmesan/Romano blend.
  • Three pieces of white bread.

Do it…

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 390° on the air fryer setting.
  2. Melt the butter w/ garlic powder, onion powder, & parsley to taste in a microwave save bowl in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until it’s a liquid.
  3. Put the bread on a baking dish, brush on the melted butter after a good stir. (I just did the top sides.)
  4. Air fry for 2 minutes, & it gets almost crispy on top, the bottom was nice and toasted.
  5. While you’re doing that nuke the meatballs & sauce on a microwave safe plate for 2 min. (or longer if needed.)
  6. Pull the toast out. (I cut the meatballs in half with a spoon then scooped them and the sauce on to two of the slices of bread.)
  7. Top the meatballs with the shredded cheese.
  8. Put the “shake cheese” on the 3rd slice of bread.
  9. Put it back in on air fry for for 4 or 5 minutes.
  10. Pull it out, assemble it like a tower of gluttony, then slice it diagonally with a giant serrated bread knife for dramatic effect.
  11. Take a photo to share & make people hungry.

That’s it. It took a little bit of time & prep, but it was worth it.

Notes:

  • If you cook & have your own meatball or sauce recipe, of course do that.
  • Use whatever kind of cheese you want, shredded, or sliced, or whatever.
  • I would guess you can use the oven on 375°-ish on a regular setting for a bit longer times, or a counter top air fryer.
  • You could also probably do all of it in the air fryer from cooking the meatballs to melting the butter if you have the appropriate vessels.
  • If you slice it in rectangles and not triangles, you are a psychopath.

Discussion:

  • If you’re out of sausage or sub buns, or hot dog buns, what are you using? Pita? Tortilla? Soft Pretzel? Dinner Rolls? Bisquick? Crescent roll dough?
  • Please, tell me in the comments how wrong it is to use jarred sauce or add brown sugar.
  • Share with me your meatball secrets.
  • Do you like the powdery shake cheese or the fancy stuff?
  • Do you make a forbidden sandwich? What is it?
  • Is this a Meatball Club, or a Meatball Melt?

This is why I had leftover meatballs:

Sloppy Joes (Cheap Quick Manwich Copy Cat Recipe)

Posted on by Standard 2

I already blogged about the yinzer Sloppy Joe made with chipped ham.  This is the more traditional one.  It’s less barbecue-y than the BBQ pork n’ slaw sandwich I blogged about though.

Who is Joe anyway, and why was he sloppy? Maybe Wikipedia knows.

My wife’s grandma had a recipe for “Barbecued Beef” that looks and tastes a lot like Manwich (or the knock-off brands):

Sloppy Joe "Barbecue Beef" Manwich CopyCat Recipe

My daughter could eat it every day, but we just make the sauce without the peppers & onions.  Also, we usually skip the Worcester sauce, but I have subbed in a bit of A1.  Here’s how I would do it…

Then mix this all together & add it…

  • ¾ Cup of (Heinz) Ketchup
  • 2 Tablespoons of Butter (Butter, not “buttery spread” or oil that’s whipped to make it look like butter.)
  • 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons Mustard (I use whatever we have… usually honey mustard.)
  • 1 Tablespoon A1 (optional)
  • Salt or season-salt to taste (optional)

This is best on the super-cheap hamburger buns… not those awesome homemade deli roll kind.  It really does taste like Manwich & it’s all stuff you probably have on hand.  It’s an easy crowd-pleaser, and its a double-whammy if you pair it with Mac n’ Cheese or ‘Tater Tots.

Try my meatball sub if you get a sale on ground beef.  Why are you still reading?  Go make this!

 

#MeatballSub #Recipe

Posted on by Standard 8

So, I’ve been hungry for meatball subs.  They’re so simple to make, but we just never seem to do it at home.  I shared the photo on social media, because I’m weird like that and it annoys people, and some people seemed to dig it.  wanted to share how easy it was with a minimal amount of effort.

So, the wife got a pound of ground meat from Aldi the other day, and I picked up the rest of the stuff that we didn’t already have at Giant Eagle on my way home from work.  I probably could have gotten all of this from Aldi.

So this is what I used…

  • 1 lb. of ground beef
  • a handful or two of finely shredded fancy 6 cheese “Italian” stuff – I started with a 2 cup bag.  We always have this or something similar around.
  • Whatever “shake cheese” you put on spaghetti. I have Parmigiano-Reggiano because they think it needs to sound fancy.
  • A handful of crackers.  We had “club” crackers from Aldi
  • Italian Dressing (we seem to really dig Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian)
  • A jar of cheap-ass pizza sauce  (I probably should have used some better marinara sauce)
  • Spices (Season All, cracked black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, Italian seasoning, paprika …whatever floats your boat.)
  • Brown sugar
  • Sub buns (I like the Cellone’s or bakery ones, but I was being cheap this shopping trip and got some weird mass-produced ones.)
  • EVOO
  • Butter

And this is what I did…

Meatball Subs

MEAT.

Turn the oven on first so you don’t have to worry about it later.  Put it on 375° because that’s always what they seem to say to put it on.  I don’t know why.  I don’t even know who they are.

I made some meatballs with the meat, some hand-crushed crackers, a dash of the pizza sauce, a dash of Italian dressing, a dash of whatever spices I grabbed off the rack (probably pepper, season all, onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika), a bit of the Parmesan shake cheese and the mysterious “six cheese Italian” stuff.

I put some spices on the outside because why not, and tossed them into a frying pan with EVOO and a small pat of butter on the bottom.  I pre-heated it to high, then turned it to 6 before I tossed in the balls.  6 is at about 6:00 on my stupid electric stove top.

I melted a bit of butter in the microwave.  I quickly cut open the buns, put them on a baking sheet, spread on some melted butter with a brush and added… garlic powder, onion powder, a dash of shake cheese, and “Italian seasoning” to the buns.  No Italian seasoning for my wife, and no garlic powder for my 2½ year old.  I popped them in the 375° oven on the middle rack for a bit.

I used tongs to turn the meatballs over & popped a lid on the pan.

I dumped the remaining pizza sauce into a soup cup (it was a little jar), and added a sprinkle of brown sugar.  I nuked it for 45 seconds or so.  Why?  I like sweet sauce, and grandma always said “it cuts the acid.”

I turned the meatballs on to an undone side, and got the sub rolls out of the oven.  I knew they were done because… I didn’t even look at them.  I just took them out.  They looked fine.  Plus, we’re not totally finished.  I added some pizza sauce and some of the finely shredded awkwardly named cheese to the buns.

I made sure the meatballs weren’t going to kill us with the food thermometer.  They weren’t.  I put those on the buns and added more sauce, shredded cheese, and shake cheese.

I set some meatballs aside for my 10 month old.  The sandwich was a little much for him, but he will eat just about anything you put in front of him.  Seriously.  even if it’s not edible.

I put the now built subs into the oven and cranked the knob to 400° because I am impatient and my 2½ year old kept asking if lunch was ready.  I turned the light on in the oven and watched the cheese melt.  Not only was that fun, I could also make sure I wasn’t going to burn the bejesus out of things.  I didn’t.  I took it out in time.

Well, some of the cheese that fell on to the baking sheet burned, because I made a mess.  Oh well.

These were pretty good, although next time I will use different/better sauce.  That squeeze stuff isn’t bad.  Maybe I can make a simple marinara.  Also, homemade-ish deli rolls or Cellone’s are worth it… and I would cut a little triangle out of the top like Subway used to, before we were over-saturated with them and they started to serve terrible cream-of-deathfish.

At any rate.  This is easy to do.  You could buy your own meatballs or bake your own bread or use cheese slices to make this as easy or as difficult as you like.  I cut my 2½ year old’s into 3 sections so she had sliders.  I cut my wife’s in 2.  I ate the whole thing in one big sandwich like a hungry hungry pig.  I refuse to apologize.

Share photos of yours or links to your own blogged recipe in the comments!