Meatball Sub Sandwich

This week’s post is for my husband. I have said a few times on this blog that my husband loves sandwiches. Me on the other hand, never my first choice of a meal. As you have probably gathered though, I do like to cook stuff and have a freezer stocked of foods to help with quick meals. Today I making a bunch of meatballs. I made my husband a meatball sub sandwich and then I have lots of extra meatballs that I can store in the freezer for a meal down the line. I would prefer to just eat the meatballs by themselves with a side of roasted asparagus and roasted potatoes. Or have some for a quick pasta dish. One main dish - both of us happy!

My secret ingredient anytime I cook ground meat is shredded veggies. I know that might sound gross, but zucchini in particular is really easy to sneak into ground meat. I feel zucchini is light in color and mild in flavor and your guests / family probably won’t even know. I also use carrots occasionally, but the orange color is obviously a bit more of a give away. Feel free to leave the zucchini out or give it a try and see if anyone notices. Finally, we like onion in our house, but some people don’t. If you don’t like onion texture, use a microplane or fine grater to at least add onion juice to the meat mixture. Or feel free to leave out fresh onion completely and maybe try some onion powder instead.

Meatball Sub

Makes 22-24 meatballs

Ingredients:

Ground meat (I used beef because we always have it in the freezer), 1 lb

Onion, 1 small chopped (about ⅔ c)

Garlic, 2 cloves

Dried oregano, ½ tsp

Dried basil, 1 tsp

Dried parsley, 1 tsp

Grated parmesan cheese, ¼ c

Breadcrumbs, ½ c

Egg, 1

Zucchini, 1

Salt and pepper, to taste

Additional ingredients for sub sandwich:

Whole wheat hoagie roll(s)

Pasta sauce

Mozzarella cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Shred zucchini using a box grater.

Better Bonus Tip: If you want to be even sneakier, remove the green skin so the meatballs don't have the added color.

Mix all meatball ingredients together.

Form into 1 inch balls and add to a pan with sides (to catch potential grease that releases during cooking). Cook for 20 minutes. After meatballs are done cooking. Set aside to slightly cool.

Slice rolls in half, although I don’t like to go all the way through the bread - making a sleeve almost.

Layer some pasta sauce on the bottom of the roll. Add three meatballs to each roll and then top with more sauce. Finally, sprinkle with some shredded mozzarella or you can use a slice if you have that on hand.

Bake the sandwiches at 400 degrees for 5-7 minutes until cheese is melted and everything is toasty. If you are using meatballs from the freezer, I like to defrost a bit before putting on the bread, to avoid excess moisture. Might also need to heat a bit longer to heat throughout, depending on that status of your freezer meatballs.

Better Bonus Tip: For a different meatball variety, try my mini meatloaf recipe and make into meatballs instead of loaves. You could even add some of the sauce on top of each meatball - yummy!

~Ashley