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:
- Reheat the cold/cooked meatballs in the microwave for two minutes, then set the pot aside to rest.
- 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.
- Line up the meatballs along the inside of your baguette.
- Add sauce on top of the meatballs and more cheese if you wish
- 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.