Can healthy and meatball and sub all go in the same sentence? Yes, our new chicken meatball sub recipe is healthy and decadent at the same time. How you ask?
We use our delicious, juicy Chicken Burger recipe (yes, chicken burgers can be juicy, you just need the right recipe!) to make chicken meatballs, then add marinara sauce, provolone cheese and a nicely grilled bun to make the best meatball sub ever. Melt in your mouth delicious! Bring napkins, they are a little messy.
To make a chicken meatball sub recipe for on-the-go you’ll want to limit your marinara sauce to keep it from dripping down your hands and onto your shirt!
How To Make Our Chicken Meatball Sub Recipe
Set the cheese out to come to room temperature that way it will melt faster. Warm marinara sauce over low heat.
Dice the onion and roughly chop the fresh spinach. Heat oil and sauté the onions for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the fresh spinach and cook until spinach wilts, about another 5 minutes. Cool. Wipe pan with paper towel and reuse pan to cook the meatballs and to brown the rolls.
It is optional to saute the onions first, see below in Time Saving Tips.
While onion cooks, dice the bacon.
Mix the uncooked bacon with the ground chicken, use your impeccably clean hands as the best tool for this job. No need to overmix.
Add the cooled onions, cream, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Form into 16 meatballs using 2 Tablespoons per chicken meatball, about golf ball size. Sprinkle the tops of meatballs with cayenne pepper.
The mixture will be very moist, more than a regular hamburger, you want it that way. If it’s too moist that the chicken meatball recipe won’t hold their shape, then add some more breadcrumbs to the mixture.
How To Cook Our Chicken Meatball Sub Recipe
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken meatballs until firm to the touch and no longer pink in the middle, about 8-10 minutes, turning to brown all sides. See Time Saving tips below for oven directions.
Serve on your favorite hoagie roll. Cut the rolls and toast in the same pan that you cooked the meatballs in. You may have to add mayonnaise to the rolls or some oil to the pan to get the hoagie rolls a nice golden color.
When still warm from the toasting, place a piece or two of provolone cheese in the roll, add the meatballs and then some marinara sauce. Enjoy!
Ingredient Substitutions For Our Chicken Meatball Recipe
Fresh Spinach – you can use a box of frozen spinach, that way you always have spinach around. I just don’t like having to squeeze it dry and freeze my hands, so if there is a choice, I will always use the fresh.
Ground chicken – Even for your red meat lovers, they will probably love this chicken meatball sub recipe so much that they won’t gripe about the “healthy” aspect of the chicken versus red meat. BUT, if they insist, of course you can substitute ground beef, turkey or pork.
Bacon – you can leave it out. Keep in mind that the bacon adds a nice touch of flavor and fat to the very lean chicken. The bacon also moistens the meatballs.
Panko breadcrumbs – if you substitute fine breadcrumbs, then reduce the amount to 1/2 cup. You want the meatballs to be a little sticky, just enough breadcrumbs to hold their shape. Making your own breadcrumbs is easy, see our technique here.
Heavy Cream – milk or half and half can be substituted.
Marinara sauce – any spaghetti or pizza sauce will do. Use bottled from the grocery or make your own marinara sauce
Provolone cheese – use your favorite cheese.
Make Ahead and Time Saving Tips
The raw meatballs can be made and refrigerated for up to 3 days. Cooked meatballs can be refrigerated for up to 5 days.
You can also make the meatballs, raw or cooked, and freeze for up to 3 months. Longer if you don’t mind some texture degradation.
Freeze the chicken meatballs on a parchment or wax paper lined tray for a couple of hours. Then add in a single layer in a marked freezer bag. Defrost over night or pop in the oven, covered, from a frozen state at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until warmed through.
Time saving tip. The first step of sauteing the onion is optional. By sauteing the onion it will keep the chicken meatballs moist because more of the juice from the onion will be released. It will also make the onions more tender and add additional flavor.
Want to bake the chicken meatballs instead of stovetop? Heat the oven to 350 degrees and cook for about 20-30 minutes. It depends on how thick you make the chicken meatballs as to when they will be ready.
Our Chicken Meatball Sub Recipe in a Slow Cooker
Ideas To Serve With Chicken Meatball Subs
Fries and Potato Chips are the first thing that come to mind.
And a green salad, coleslaw or potato salad are always welcome with comfort food like these subs.
Try our Olive Garden Salad, Caesar Salad, Creamy Chick-fil-A Coleslaw or Tangy Vinegar Based Coleslaw. All recipes are easy and delicious.
Chicken Meatball Sub Recipe
This may be made with chicken, but it will beat any meatball sub you have ever tried. Even with the spinach in it. Try it!
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 Tablespoon canola oil
- 1/2 medium sweet onion like Vidalia
- 2 strips uncooked bacon thick cut is best
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs if using fine breadcrumbs only use 1/2 cup
- 10 ounces fresh spinach or 1/2 pound frozen spinach thawed and squeezed dry
- 2 Tablespoons heavy cream or milk or 1/2 & 1/2
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
- 4 pinches cayenne pepper ground red pepper
Other
- 4 six inch sub rolls
- 2 cups marinara sauce store bought or homemade
- 4 slices provolone cheese or your favorite cheese
Instructions
First Thing
-
Remove cheese from the refrigerator to bring to room temperature. Heat marinara sauce over low heat. Finely dice the onions.
Prepare the Meatball Mixture
-
Heat oil and sauté the onions for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the fresh
spinach and cook until spinach wilts, about another 5 minutes. Cool. Wipe pan
with paper towel and reuse to cook the meatballs.While onions cook, dice the bacon.
-
Mix the uncooked bacon with the ground chicken, use your impeccably clean hands as
the best tool for this job. No need to overmix.Add the cooled onions, cream, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Form into 16 meatballs, 2 Tablespoons each. Sprinkle the tops of chicken meatballs with cayenne pepper.
Cook The Meatballs and Prepare the Chicken Meatball Subs
-
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken meatballs until firm to the touch and no longer pink in the middle, about 4-5 minutes. Turn and cook another 5 minutes or so to brown all sides.
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Serve on your favorite sub roll with marinara sauce and provolone cheese.
Toasting the rolls makes this chicken meatball sub recipe even better. Spread buns with
mayonnaise or leave plain. Wipe the meatball pan with a paper towel. Add the sub
rolls to the pan to brown over medium-high heat. It won’t take long to turn a
beautiful golden brown.
Recipe Notes
Remove the cheese from the refrigerator first thing, that way the cheese will be room temperature and melt easier. If you put room temperature slices of cheese on a hot, just toasted sub roll it will melt well.
You can toast the sub rolls on the stove top or you can broil them. If you broil the rolls keep a sharp eye on the bread since it can burn quickly.
Make Ahead Tips:
The chicken meatballs can be formed up to 2 days ahead of cooking. Form the meatballs, place on a wax paper or parchment paper lined tray, cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before cooking.
Or better yet freeze the uncooked chicken meatballs. I always double the recipe and make dinner for that night and then freeze the other half of the chicken meatball sub recipe for another meal. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight.
If using frozen spinach, you can thaw and squeeze dry up to 2 days ahead of time. Put squeezed spinach in a resealable baggie or container.
The onion can be chopped up to a week ahead of time and stored in a resealable container or a freezer baggie which is thicker and contains odors better than a regular baggie. If you don’t have freezer bags, then double up a normal one to keep the onion odor contained.
The uncooked bacon can be chopped and stored in a container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
See post for ingredient substitutions, topping and side suggestions
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