Easy Meatball Subs

Got meatball leftovers? Or cooking meatballs?  Using up meatballs doesn’t have to always be a full meal on a plate – this easy meatball sub might hit the spot.  This was a really tasty lunch today as I had some items that needed to be used up soonest, so it made perfect sense to me to have a meatball baguette, which is apparently now called a meatball sub – I do wish people’d leave names alone and stop changing what food’s called!

I didn’t want to go OTT and make it fully loaded, that’s the route to over-eating, so I kept it sane and sensible, except the four full generous meatballs I used, which could be cut down on if you didn’t have four and weren’t so greedy as me 🙂 

I’d made some meatballs in the slow cooker the other week and frozen them up into portions, so I took one of those packs of four meatballs from the freezer yesterday and popped them into my microwave soup mug in the fridge (as that’s what I was going to re-heat the balls in).

I’d also baked some part-baked baguettes in the mini oven and had one final half a baguette that was stored in a plastic takeaway box (to keep it fresh) that needed using up.  It seemed sensible therefore to have an easy meatball sub for lunch.

Ingredients:

• 4 ready-cooked meatballs.  I used four I’d previously cooked in the slow cooker, but you can make yours fresh if you want, or even buy ready cooked meatballs.
• Half a baguette. I usually have a vacuum-packed packet of part-baked baguettes in the bread bin, which cook in just 10 minutes in my mini oven.
• 20-25 grams grated cheddar cheese – as much, or as little, as you’ve got or want
• Sauce. I used the sauce I’d cooked the meatballs in this time, but you can use a jar of chutney or ketchup or any other bottled sauce you have and like.  This is your opportunity to splash about with a bit of flavouring that you love.

Method:

1. Reheat the cold/cooked meatballs in the microwave for two minutes, then set the pot aside to rest.
2. Put some of the grated cheddar in the baguette and microwave the baguette/cheese for 1-1½ minutes, so the bread’s warm and the cheese slightly melted.
3. Line up the meatballs along the inside of your baguette.
4. Add sauce on top of the meatballs and more cheese if you wish
5. Serve!

This was really tasty and is a lunch you can take to work if you’ve a microwave there!  Whether you call it a meatball baguette, or a meatball sub is up to you!

The food cheats here were that I’d used part-baked baguettes, which have a long shelf life in their vacuum pack; I used a slow cooker to cook the meatballs without any effort at all; I used the microwave to bring it all together!

Menu Cost – 60p: 

The total cost of this dish was just £0.10 for the half baguette, £0.10 for the mature cheddar cheese (price is currently £4.25/Kg) and the meatballs cost £0.40.  Total cost is therefore £0.60 – you’d pay closer to £2-3 for this if you were to try to buy it in the shops.