This is The Perfect Meatball Sandwich recipe, made on toasted, buttery garlic bread, with an easy homemade marinara sauce and my favorite beef and sausage meatballs.
A while back, I shared these fantastic freezer meatballs. (If you haven’t made a batch yet, please do. They are one of my favorite things on the site, and if you have a batch in your freezer you can make today’s recipe in about half an hour.)
Anyway, in that post, I promised meatball sandwiches would be coming soon and we have reached that day. Hooray for Meatball Sandwich day!
Ingredient Notes
There are a few things that go into making the perfect meatball sandwich.
- Good meatballs: I recommend using my absolute favorite meatball recipe for these sandwiches, but if you want to use your own meatball recipe or you’re in a hurry and want to use frozen meatballs, go for it.
- Excellent marinara sauce: The homemade marinara sauce on these sandwiches is just about the perfect marinara sauce. It’s pretty quick-cooking (for a red sauce), is made with just 5 ingredients, and is so tangy and bright and delicious. Good luck not just eating it with a spoon.
- Toasty bread: Soggy meatball sandwiches are the worst. And the best way to avoid soggy sandwiches is to build your sub on lightly toasted bread. And for this recipe, we’re not just going to toast the bread but turn it into buttery, perfect toasted garlic bread.
How to Make Meatball Sandwiches
- Make/warm your meatballs: Make or heat up your premade meatballs so they’re hot and ready to go.
- Make the marinara sauce: While the meatballs heat, throw together your marinara sauce. This process is mostly hands-off. You just brown some garlic, stir in the rest of your sauce ingredients, and let it simmer away.
- Make garlic bread: Slather your rolls with butter and then sprinkle with garlic powder. Bake until they are just lightly toasted.
- Assemble: Top the garlic bread with meatballs, sauce, and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, and bake until the cheese is melted.
What kind of bread should I use?
French rolls are ideal for meatball marinara sandwiches. They toast up nicely but are soft so they’re easy to bite into even when stuffed full.
Hot dog buns also work well and are a great size for smaller eaters. Depending on the size of your meatballs, you may want to cut them in halves or quarters so they fit better in the smaller buns.
What do you put on a meatball sub?
Aside from meatballs, marinara sauce, and cheese, cooked bell peppers and onions are a delicious addition to meatball subs. To add them to your sub, thinly slice the onions and peppers and cook them in a little olive oil with salt and pepper over medium heat until they are tender-crisp. Load them onto your sandwich and enjoy!
What goes with meatball sandwiches?
Meatball sandwiches are extremely rich and filling, so simple sides like a green salad or garlic green beans complement them nicely. If you want that true deli experience, serve them with a crunchy coleslaw and some kettle chips.
Can I make these in advance?
Yes! Don’t make the garlic bread and assemble the sandwiches until just before you’re ready to serve them, but the sauce and meatballs can be made up to 2 days in advance.
When you’re ready to eat, all you have to do is heat the sauce and meatballs, toast the garlic bread, and assemble your sandwiches.
More Sandwich Recipes
- Pesto Chicken Sandwich on Sourdough
- Panini Without a Panini Press
- Tri-tip Sandwich
- Carne Asada Sandwich
- Pesto Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Recipe Notes
- This sauce recipe calls for a skillet and a splatter screen. The wide skillet is used to increase the cooking surface area so the sauce cooks faster, but you absolutely must use a splatter screen or you will have a mess on your hands. If you don’t own a splatter screen, you can buy one– they are pretty cheap and super handy. Or you can just use a large pot without a screen and turn the sauce down a little so it’s not popping as high. Your sauce will take a bit longer, but there will be less mess.
- If you are cooking for only one or two people, the marinara sauce freezes very well. Just freeze leftover sauce in a mason jar or freeze flat in a freezer bag and it can be frozen for up to three months.
Equipment
- Splatter screen
- Large skillet
Ingredients
Quick Marinara Sauce
- ▢ 1 28-ounce can whole San Marzano tomatoes
- ▢ ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- ▢ 7 cloves garlic peeled and slivered or minced
- ▢ ¼ cup water
- ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ▢ 1 ½ teaspoon sugar
- ▢ ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ▢ Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
- ▢ 1 large fresh basil sprig or ¼ teaspoon dried basil
Meatball Sandwich
- ▢ 4 French rolls
- ▢ Butter
- ▢ Garlic powder
- ▢ 12 to 16 large meatballs fully cooked and warmed
- ▢ 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- ▢ Fresh basil optional for topping
Instructions
Quick Marinara Sauce
- With an immersion blender, food processor, or blender, process tomatoes until mostly pureed–the texture of chunky salsa. You can also turn the tomatoes out into a bowl and crush them with your hands (don’t discard the juices).
- In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Once hot, add the garlic and cook just until it starts to turn lightly golden–watch carefully so it doesn’t burn! Add the tomatoes and their juices to the skillet along with water, salt, sugar, oregano, red pepper flakes, and sprig of basil. Cover with splatter screen and bring to a good simmer, turning up the heat if necessary. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes until sauce is thickened. Taste and add more salt if needed.
- Remove basil sprig.
Meatball Sandwiches
- Preheat your oven to 400°F. Butter both sides of your French rolls and sprinkle garlic powder over the top. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 3 to 4 minutes until lightly toasted.
- Add a couple tablespoons of sauce to both sides of each French roll and top with 3 to 4 meatballs and 1/4 cup of mozzarella. Bake for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, until cheese is melted.
- Add fresh basil if desired. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Sauce Adapted From The New York Times
This is a quick tutorial on how to cook chicken breasts when you get a recipe that calls for “cooked chicken.” It’s simple, easy, and mostly hands-off, so you can do the rest of your recipe prep while the chicken cooks. You end up with juicy, tender chicken breasts that are perfect to cube and mix into pasta, soups, and other recipes or just enjoy for a light, healthy lunch.
Question! What do you do when you make a recipe and the ingredient list calls for “cooked chicken?”
Do you throw a chicken breast in the oven for half an hour and hope for the best? Run out and buy a rotisserie chicken? Pick a different recipe because come on, why doesn’t it say how to cook the chicken–half the recipe is missing?
Yes? Yes? or Yes? Friend, today’s recipe is for you.
The Best Way to Cook Chicken Breasts
This is the BEST way to cook chicken breast when you come across a recipe that calls for “cooked chicken.” It tastes a hundred times better than oven-cooked chicken breast, you don’t need to make a trip to the grocery store, and it’s so easy that after you’ve made it once, you’ll never need a recipe for cooked chicken ever again.
This method, which is a mix of pan frying and something similar to poaching, produces chicken that is moist, tender, and super flavorful.
Best of all, the chicken can go from fridge to stove with almost no prep and needs no babysitting. Once you get it cooking, you can walk away and do the rest of your recipe prep. It’s the best.
Ingredients and Tools
- A skillet with a lid: You’ll need a skillet with a lid for this recipe since once the chicken is browned it cooks covered to trap the heat and steam of the simmering liquid for quicker, more even cooking. If you don’t own a skillet with a lid, or you’re planning on making soup and don’t want to get two dishes dirty, you can cook your chicken in a large pot with a lid.
- Instant-read thermometer : An instant-read thermometer takes all the guesswork out of cooking meat so you can pull your chicken from the stove at exactly the right moment. You can cook chicken without one, but if you cook meat regularly, go buy a thermometer. It will change your life!
- Boneless skinless chicken breasts: Chicken breast size varies wildly, so don’t be alarmed if your chicken is taking longer to cook than expected. There are some huge chicken breasts out there these days, and they will take significantly longer to cook than a 6-ounce breast. Just keep adding water if it all simmers away and trust your thermometer!
- Seasonings: Unless the recipe calls for additional seasonings, I typically just salt and pepper the chicken, but you can get creative with the spices to add extra flavor. Italian seasoning and taco seasoning are both excellent options.
How to Cook Chicken Breasts for Recipes
- Salt and pepper both sides of your chicken breasts and heat your skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, lightly grease with cooking spray or a drizzle of oil. Place chicken breasts in the pan and cook until the first side is nicely browned, 3 to 4 minutes.
- Flip chicken breasts and brown second side, 2 to 3 minutes. Once both sides are browned, add about 1/2-inch of water to the pan. Turn heat down to medium, cover and cook for 5 to 8 minutes (longer with larger breasts). Walk away and do your prep work for the rest of your recipe, checking every once in a while and adding more water if it all evaporates.
- The chicken is done when an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast reads 165°F.
- Remove breasts from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes before cutting as recipe calls for. Enjoy!
Now tell me that wasn’t the easiest thing ever!
Making Shredded Chicken for Recipes
If your recipe calls for shredded chicken, this cooking method works great. Just let your chicken breast rest a little longer after cooking, about 10 minutes and then use two forks to pull the chicken apart.
For more shredding methods and extra tips and tricks, go check out my post How to Make Shredded Chicken .
Recipes Using Cooked Chicken
Not sure what to make with your cooked chicken? Here are a few of my favorites:
- BBQ Chicken Pizza
- Chicken Parm Soup
- Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Orzo
- Creamy Chicken Tortellini Soup
How Many Chicken Breasts Equals a Cup?
Recipes usually call for cooked chicken measured by volume, and that can be tricky to estimate when you’re holding a package of raw chicken measured by weight.
Chicken breast sizes vary a ton, but a good rule of thumb is that you can expect to get a little over 2 cups of cooked meat from 1 pound of raw chicken. Medium-sized raw chicken breasts usually weigh about 8 ounces so:
For 1 cup cooked meat, cook 1 medium chicken breast.
Unless you are trying to accurately estimate calories (in which case, you should be using a scale , not volume), being a little over or under on chicken is not going to hurt your recipe, so don’t stress too much about it.
Can I cook chicken this way and freeze it?
Yes. Once your chicken is fully cooked and cooled, you can either freeze it whole or cut into pieces in a freezer bag. Be sure to squeeze as much air as possible out of the bag before freezing to reduce the chance of freezer burn. Cooked chicken can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months.
How many chicken breasts can I cook at once using this method?
You can cook as few or as many chicken breasts as you’d like as long as the chicken fits in a single layer in the pan without being crowded. It’s okay if some edges touch, since the chicken will shrink as it cooks, but you don’t want a solid layer of chicken with no space in between. You won’t get good browning or even cooking.
Chicken Breast Recipe Tips
- There will typically be some liquid left at the bottom of the pan after your chicken is cooked. This liquid is full of flavor, so if making soup, add it to the broth for a flavor boost. And if making the chicken in advance, you can pour it back over the chopped breasts to help keep them moist.
More Chicken Tutorials
- How to Co ok Perfect Chicken Breasts for Salads and Sandwiches
- Roasted Chicken Guide
- How to Cook Chicken Shredded Chicken
- How to Make Chicken Stock
- How to Make Soup from a Chicken Carcass
Equipment
- Skillet with a lid
- Instant-read thermometer
Ingredients
- ▢ Boneless skinless chicken breasts
- ▢ Salt
- ▢ Pepper
- ▢ Water
Instructions
- Salt and pepper both sides of your chicken breasts.
- Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, lightly grease with cooking spray or a drizzle of oil. Place chicken breasts in the pan and cook until the first side is nicely browned, 3 to 4 minutes.
- Flip chicken breasts and brown second side, 2 to 3 minutes. Once both sides are browned, add about 1/2-inch of water to the pan. Turn heat down to medium, cover and cook for 5 to 8 minutes (longer with larger breasts), adding more water if it all evaporates, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast reads 165°F.
- Remove breasts from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes before cutting as recipe calls for. Enjoy!
Notes
My favorite banana bread recipe makes some of the best banana bread you’ll ever eat. It’s incredibly easy to make and bakes up soft and moist with an irresistible cinnamon sugar crust.
As a food blogger, I get asked for recipe suggestions all the time, and I’m usually thrilled to oblige (it’d be silly to run a food blog if I weren’t). But there’s one recipe people ask me about the most that I just didn’t have a good answer for, banana bread.
Sure I have my ever-popular small-batch banana muffins and my absolute fav chocolate banana muffins , but I’m SUPER picky about my banana bread, and I just didn’t have a favorite full-size banana bread recipe I could unreservedly recommend.
So over the last year, I set out testing and experimenting with recipes, and I finally have it, my favorite banana bread recipe in the world. Friend, you should really make Dominique Ansel’s banana bread.
Dominique Ansel’s Banana Bread
If you’re not familiar with Dominique Ansel, he is a French pastry chef, owner of the Dominique Ansel Bakery, and the creator of the famous cronut. This recipe comes from his (excellent) book Everyone Can Bake , and makes an incredibly good, incredibly easy sweet and moist loaf of banana bread.
What Makes This Banana Bread So Good
- An extra banana: Most banana bread recipes with a similar ratio of ingredients call for 3 bananas. This recipe uses 4, which boosts the banana flavor and the moist texture of the bread.
- Butter, a lot of it: There is also a slightly obscene amount of butter in this recipe. It gives the bread a fantastic richness and hint of buttery flavor that is SO good.
- Heavy on the sugar: This recipe also uses quite a bit of sugar compared to some banana bread recipes, so the bread is tender, sweet, and absolutely feels like a dessert treat (that you can eat for breakfast!!!).
Ingredient and Tool Notes
- 10 x 5-inch loaf pan: The original recipe calls for a 10 x 5-inch loaf pan. If your loaf pan is slightly smaller, not a problem. You just won’t need to use quite all of the batter when it’s time to bake the bread.
- Bananas: This recipe uses 4 medium bananas. If you prefer doing all your baking by weight, that’s about 400 grams of bananas, but I have successfully made this with slightly larger bananas, up to about 500 grams.
- Butter: You can use salted or unsalted butter here, just make sure to read the recipe notes and add more or less salt depending on which you’re using.
- Cinnamon sugar: This is optional, but I like my banana bread with a cinnamon sugar crust, so I added one here. If you’re not a huge fan of cinnamon or don’t want the extra sweetness, you can skip it.
How to Make the Best Banana Bread
Mix dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt.
Mix most of the wet ingredients: In a medium bowl, mash bananas and whisk in eggs. Pour banana mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Add the butter: Add melted butter, and mix until butter is incorporated into the batter. Don’t over mix, but there should not be pools of butter remaining around the edges of the batter.
Bake: Transfer the batter to your prepared loaf pan, leaving ¾-inch of space from the top of the pan (discard extra batter if there is too much). Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top and bake the bread for about an hour, until a toothpick or knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
Slice and enjoy: Allow bread to cool in the pan for 15 to 20 minutes before removing and slicing.
How can I quickly ripen bananas for banana bread?
If your bananas aren’t quite brown enough for baking, it’s really easy to help them along. Bake the bananas (with their peels ON) on a baking sheet in a 300°F oven for 30 to 40 minutes until the peels are blackened and soft to the touch.
Let them sit until cool enough to handle and then peel and transfer bananas to a bowl and mash so that they cool more quickly. Cool completely before using in the banana bread.
If you want to see photos of this process, go check out my post How to Quickly Ripen Bananas .
How to Store Banana Bread
Store the bread tightly wrapped at room temperature for up to 3 days. For longer storage, freeze the baked bread.
How to Freeze Banana Bread
Banana bread freezes quite nicely, either as a whole loaf or individual slices. To freeze, wrap loaf/pieces tightly in plastic wrap and then store in an airtight container or freezer bag.
When you’re ready to eat the bread, remove it from the freezer, defrost at room temperature, and enjoy.
You Might Also Enjoy: How to Freeze Bananas
Can I make a small-batch version of this banana bread?
Don’t worry, small-batch friends, I haven’t forgotten about you. If you’d like to make a mini version of this bread, I scaled the recipe down for you so you can make it with just one banana and a mini loaf pan. Go check out my One-banana Banana Bread post.
More Banana Recipes
- Banana Milkshake
- Banana Pancakes
- Small Banana Cake
- Strawberry Banana Milkshake
- Banana Milkshake Without Ice Cream
Or check out this post of Banana Recipes .
Equipment
- 10 x 5-inch loaf pan
- Parchment paper, optional
Ingredients
- ▢ 2 cups ( 400g ) granulated sugar
- ▢ 2 cups ( 250g ) all-purpose flour
- ▢ 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ▢ ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ▢ ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ▢ ½ teaspoon salt*
- ▢ 4 ( about 400g ) medium overripe bananas
- ▢ 3 large eggs
- ▢ 14 tablespoons ( 196g ) salted butter* melted
Optional Cinnamon Sugar Crust
- ▢ 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- ▢ 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
Banana Bread
- Preheat your oven to 350°F, grease a 10 x 5-inch loaf pan, and line it with a parchment paper sling (optional).
- In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt.
- In a medium bowl, mash bananas and whisk in eggs until well-mixed. Pour banana mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Add melted butter, and mix until butter is incorporated into the batter. Don’t over mix, but batter should be mostly uniform, and there should not be pools of butter remaining around the edges of the batter.
- Transfer the batter to your prepared loaf pan, leaving 3/4 inch of space from the top of the pan (discard extra batter if there is too much).
Optional Cinnamon Sugar Crust
- In a small bowl, stir together sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over the top of the batter.
Bake
- Bake bread in preheated oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
- Allow the loaf to cool in the pan for 15 to 20 minutes before removing and slicing.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
The Perfect Meatball Sandwich
Equipment
- Splatter screen
- Large skillet
Ingredients
Quick Marinara Sauce
- 1 28-ounce can whole San Marzano tomatoes
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 7 cloves garlic peeled and slivered or minced
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1 ½ teaspoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 large fresh basil sprig or ¼ teaspoon dried basil
Meatball Sandwich
- 4 French rolls
- Butter
- Garlic powder
- 12 to 16 large meatballs fully cooked and warmed
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- Fresh basil optional for topping
Instructions
Quick Marinara Sauce
- With an immersion blender, food processor, or blender, process tomatoes until mostly pureed–the texture of chunky salsa. You can also turn the tomatoes out into a bowl and crush them with your hands (don’t discard the juices).
- In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Once hot, add the garlic and cook just until it starts to turn lightly golden–watch carefully so it doesn’t burn! Add the tomatoes and their juices to the skillet along with water, salt, sugar, oregano, red pepper flakes, and sprig of basil. Cover with splatter screen and bring to a good simmer, turning up the heat if necessary. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes until sauce is thickened. Taste and add more salt if needed.
- Remove basil sprig.
Meatball Sandwiches
- Preheat your oven to 400°F. Butter both sides of your French rolls and sprinkle garlic powder over the top. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 3 to 4 minutes until lightly toasted.
- Add a couple tablespoons of sauce to both sides of each French roll and top with 3 to 4 meatballs and 1/4 cup of mozzarella. Bake for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, until cheese is melted.
- Add fresh basil if desired. Serve and enjoy!
