Super tender and tasty meatballs braised in a tomato-y sauce topped off with melty cheese in a toasty baguette.
Recipe and images by: i am a food blog
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 3 cups bread cut into small cubes (see notes)
- 1 cup milk
- 1 lb ground beef
- 3 eggs
- 3 cloves garlic
- 3/4 cups grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped flat leaf parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 4-5 cups of your favorite basic tomato sauce
For the subs
- 1 Sourdough Baguette
- 4 meatballs and sauce (see above recipe)
- 2-4 slices low moisture fresh mozzarella cheese
- grated parmesan, to taste
Preparation
- Heat the oven to 400°F.
- In a large skillet or saucepan with a lid, heat up your tomato/marinara sauce over medium low heat.
- Place the bread cubes in a bowl and cover with milk, tossing so that all the cubes are saturated. After 1-2 minutes the bread should be soggy and wet. Using your hands, squeeze out as much milk as possible. Use your fingertips to break up the bread into very small breadcrumbs.
- In a large bowl, mix together the bread, ground beef, eggs, garlic, parmesan, flat leaf parsley, salt, and freshly ground pepper. You want to mix everything so that it’s homogenous, but loose – don’t work the meatball mixture too much.
- By this time your sauce should be simmering with several bubbles breaking the surface. Form large meatballs (I made 7 big ones) and drop them directly into the sauce. Simmer in the sauce, partially covered, over medium heat, flipping occasionally. Simmer gently until cooked through, about 25-30 minutes.
- Cut the baguette in half so you’ll have two sandwiches, then cut lengthwise. Top both sides of the baguette with a generous amount of sauce and a bit of grated parmesan. Place the meatballs on the bottom baguette and top with slices of mozzarella and some more parmesan.
- Bake until the cheese is gooey and melted. Place the top half of the sandwich on top of the meatballs and enjoy!
*Notes: For my bread cubes, I trimmed the crust then cut up one demi-baguette.
