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Meatball Sub Bake Recipe – delicious bread boats stuffed with meatballs, marinara, and tons of melted cheese baked to perfection!
If you love meatball subs, you’ll love this delicious baked twist on the classic – these stuffed meatball sub boats are simple, easy, and delicious – they are great to serve for a crowd, and bursting with flavor.
You can slice these up to feed many, or cut them in half for dinner enough for 6 for an easy weeknight meal.
These meatball sub boats are perfect at a party for the big game – serve them with jalapeno poppers, queso, pizza dip, crispy baked wings, Bacon Cheese Dip , and air fryer french fries for the best gameday ever!
Don’t want all the extras in a recipe post? We provide a skip to recipe button in the top left corner, as well as a clickable table of contents, just below, to help make this page easier to navigate.
At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe – my goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
I want each reader to walk away with a solid knowledge of each recipe, with all of the tips I’ve gathered from extensive testing of each recipe. I also answer questions my friends and family have asked about my recipes, to help everyone better understand the processes we use – and why!
Table of contents
Perfect Easy Meatballs
Meatballs are one of my all time favorite dishes because they are hearty, rich, and so easy to make!
We’re making our own meatballs from scratch for this recipe, as well as our own marinara sauce, so we can control the flavor and be sure everything is extra delicious!
You can also find my Air Fryer Meatballs recipe and The Best Easy Meatballs Recipe if you’d like to try some different meatball recipes – both are loaded with flavor and total knockouts!
Using Pre-Cooked Meatballs
If you’d like to skip the step of making your own meatballs, you can use store-bought meatballs for this recipe.
I personally prefer the pre-rolled, but uncooked kind you can get in your grocer’s meat department – but the frozen, fully cooked kind work well too.
Fully cook/reheat meatballs according to package directions before using in recipe.
How To Cook Meatballs
Cooking meatballs is really easy – you just need a large skillet, and to let them cook while turning often to brown them evenly.
If you’d like an even easier method to cook meatballs, be sure to see my Easy Air Fried Meatballs Recipe.
- Place a cast-iron skillet or pan over medium-high heat.
- Cook the meatballs, turning to cook each side for about 5 minutes or until browned on all sides.
- If meatballs are browned outside, but still cold inside, add 2-3 tbsp water to the pan and add a cover. This will help meatballs steam in the middle, so it can cook through, without over browning/charring.
What Bread To Use For Meatball Subs
For this recipe, we recommend thick, pillowy hoagie or top-cut hotdog buns, or Italian bread rolls.
You want a large, pillowy bread – so it is soft enough to eat, but will stand up to the meatballs and sauce.
What To Serve With Meatball Sub Bake
This meatball sub bake is delicious with all sorts of easy side dishes – it’s perfect for hearty, delicious meals full of comfort food!
To see our complete side dish recipe archives, click here.
To Make This Recipe You’ll Need:
- ½ lb ground beef
- ½ lb ground pork
- ½ onion (diced
- ¾ cup italian bread crumbs
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp oregano
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley (divided)
- 2 tsp minced garlic (divided)
- 1 egg (whisked)
- 3 soft rolls italian bread
- ¼ cup butter melted
- 9 slices mozzarella cheese
- 4 tbsp parmesan cheese
Easy Marinara Sauce Ingredients
- 1 can Italian style diced tomatoes
- 1 can crushed tomatoes
- 1 tsp garlic
- 1 tsp basil
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
You can also skip making your own, and grab your favorite store-bought marinara sauce.
We recommend sauces with lots of cheese or herb flavor!
Recipe FAQ’s
This recipe works great with store-bought marinara sauce or meatballs – either the pre-cooked frozen kind of meatballs, or the pre-rolled raw kind found in your grocer’s meat department.
Meatballs are fully cooked at 160 degrees when using an instant read digital meat thermometer. Fully cook meatballs before using in this meatball sub boat recipe.
Meatball Sub Bake Recipe
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Easy Meatball Sub Bake Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ lb ground beef
- ½ lb ground pork
- ½ onion (diced
- ¾ cup italian bread crumbs
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp oregano
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley, divided
- 2 tsp minced garlic, divided
- 1 egg, whisked
- 3 soft rolls italian bread
- ¼ cup butter melted
- 9 slices mozzarella cheese
- 4 tbsp parmesan cheese
- Easy marinara sauce, optional, can use 1 jar your favorite marinara sauce*
- 1 can Italian style diced tomatoes*
- 1 can crushed tomatoes*
- 1 tsp garlic*
- 1 tsp basil*
- Salt and pepper, to taste*
Instructions
- Add ground beef, ground pork, diced onion, bread crumbs, red pepper, oregano, 1 tbsp parsley, 1 tsp minced garlic, and the egg to a large mixing bowl.
- Use your hands (preferably with gloves) to mix together until well combined. Shape meat mixture into golf ball-sized balls.
- Place a cast-iron skillet or pan over medium-high heat.
- Cook the meatballs, turning to cook each side for about 5 minutes or until browned on all sides, about 15-20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- Place the soft rolls in a greased casserole dish.
- Use a knife to cut a rectangle in the center of each roll, then press down on the inside to make a boat.
- Mix together the melted butter, 1 tsp minced garlic, and 1 tbsp of parsley.
- Use a brush to coat the rolls with the garlic butter.
- Bake for 5 minutes to toast the bread and remove from the oven.
- While the garlic bread is toasting, make the marinara sauce. Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes. (skip if using jarred sauce)
- Put two slices of mozzarella into the rolls. Then add 2-3 spoonfuls of the marinara to the top of the cheese. Put three meatballs into each garlic bread boat, then cover the meatballs with marinara sauce. Add 1 more slice of cheese, cut in half to cover the meatballs.
- Place in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and top with shredded parmesan.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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