I’m all about the best of both worlds thing when it comes to food. I love the combination of things and how that enhances the meal from donut muffins, Oreo chocolate chip cookies, to this. The combination of a meatball and sausage sub satusfies my love of meatball subs, while getting spice and flavor from sausage.
When I was younger, I never was a huge fan of Italian sausage (get your mind out of the gutter!). I didn’t think that Sweet Italian sausage had much flavor, and while I liked the spice from Hot Italian Sausage I could not get past all that damn fennel seed. I have slowly come around to it. Mainly because I typically have it grilled or cooked in beer, loaded up with peppers and onions with spicy mustard.
While you can use Sweet or Hot Italian Sausage, I really suggest using the Hot variety because it will be able to stand up against the plain ground beef. If you happen to like sweet sausage you might want to make it 1 pound to be even with the ground beef. The only thing I suggest adding to the meat mixture is a grated onion, to add some flavor and moisture. Anything else, besides salt and pepper, would compete with the seasoned sausage.
Sausage Meatball Subs
makes 4 subs
1 pound of ground beef (80/20) 3/4 pound of Italian Sausage (I suggest Hot) 1 small white onion, grated 4 small sub rolls or 2 large loaves, halved 8 slices of provolone cheese generous drizzle of olive oil 2 cups of marinara sauce____________________
Preheat oven to 400, drizzle bread with olive oil and toast bread until light brown, add cheese for last remaining few minutes to melt.
While the bread is toasting, remove Sausage from casing to prep it for being incorporated into the ground beef.
In a large bowl, combine a grated onion, beef, and sausage.
Roll 20 meatballs out.
Cook meatballs in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Evenly roll and brown on all sides while cooking.
Once meatballs are all evenly browned and almost done, add in 2 cups of marinara sauce. This will heat up the marinara and finish off the meatballs while they simmer in the sauce.
Assemble the sub with 5 meatballs each and enjoy!