Fakeaway Meatball Marinara Sub
There’s no prizes for guessing which fast-food restaurant inspired this fakeaway meatball marinara sub recipe. From the slow cooked meatballs, to the rich tomato sauce and melted mozarella – this recipe will have you craving more.

This recipe is incredibly straight-forward. We went for ultimate ease and used shop-bought beef meatballs, but you can make your own if you prefer. To make this recipe even easier, you could also use a shop-bought marinara or pizza sauce. You could brown the meatballs in a pan first, but there isn’t much benefit in this one.
The great thing about this dish is that any leftovers can be used in a variety of ways. If you make more meatballs than you need for the subs, then you can re-use them with pasta or with rice. Or if you have leftover sauce but no meatballs, that can be re-used too. The sauce will retain a lovely beefy infusion from the meatballs.
To finish off, we found the perfect ‘sub’ style bread for this recipe: soft baguettes from Asda. They are soft enough that they soak up the sauce, but still hold their shape.
After loading up the subs with meatballs, top with mozarella slices and finish under the grill. Within just 2-3 minutes, the mozarella melts and becomes super stringy with every bite. You could use any cheese of your choice instead. We also recommend a small sprinkling of freshly chopped parsley, even though they don’t do that in your local sub shop!

Slow Cooker Meatball Marinara
Equipment
- Slow Cooker
- Grill (broiler) optional
Ingredients
- 300 g Beef meatballs 10-12 meatballs
- 600 g Tomato passata
- 2 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 tsp Dried oregano
- 1 tsp Dried basil
- 1 tsp Sugar
For the subs
- 2 Soft 'sub' rolls or baguettes
- 3 Mozarella slices cut into triangles
Instructions
- In the slow cooker combine meatballs, passata, garlic, oregano, basil and sugar. Stir well.
- Cook on high for 3-4 hours.
- Cut your subs in half and spoon the sauce from the slow cooker onto both sides of the bread. Place 5-6 meatballs onto one side, spoon over some more sauce and top with mozarella cheese slices.
- Optionally grill (broil) for 2-3 minutes until the cheese melts.
Notes
Nutrition
Why not try?
If you like the idea of beef in a sub roll, you may also like the idea of Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches.
Or want a slow cooker meatball recipe, but don’t fancy this one? Then take a look at our Lamb and Mint Meatballs for a Mediteranean meatball twist. Or for all of our recipes, use our recipe finder to narrow down a recipe choice by category, ingredient and time!
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