Meatball subs make a complete meal – it has soft bread, tasty meatballs, fantastic sauce, and many other toppings. It’s satisfying and delicious; it hardly needs anything else. Thus, the side dish must be incredible if you have to serve it with anything else.
However, incredible doesn’t have to be complicated. The easiest and simplest treats make perfect sides for meatball subs. Thus, you can choose from these 14 effortless recipes to make a tasty and easy side for your meatball sub.
1. Marinara Sauce
Recipes often include marinara sauce as an essential element of a meatball sub. The meatballs are smothered in the sauce before both are piled into the soft bread rolls. But you can also use it as a side or dipping sauce instead. It takes less than 30 minutes to make, and you only need olive oil, onion, garlic, tomatoes, oregano, salt, pepper, and basil or parsley.
2. Air Fryer French Fries
French fries are a classic treat with any sandwich, including a meatball sub. But if you want to cut back on the unhealthy oil and have an air fryer on standby, go for this recipe instead. The fries are as crispy and crunchy as traditional deep-fried fries but much healthier and less oily.
3. Baked Sweet Potato Fries
If you prefer a unique, sweeter fries flavor, try these baked sweet potato fries. Like the previous recipe, it’s a healthy alternative to deep-fried fries. It’s also crispy and crunchy, but the taste is distinctly different from potatoes. Their nutritional profiles are similar, with sweet potatoes offering more vitamin A, antioxidants, carbs, calories, and other nutrients.
4. Crispy Onion Rings
Perfect onion rings have the following qualities: crunchy breading, soft interior onions, and impeccably sweet, balanced flavors. The secret to achieving those is the double-dipping technique you’ll learn from the recipe. There’s also a suggested dipping sauce recipe. But you can pair the onion rings with marinara sauce or ketchup to compliment the tomato-rich flavors of meatball subs.
5. Tomato Basil Soup
To warm up your cold day, make a meatball sub and a bowl of this rich tomato basil soup. The soup’s flavors match the meatball sub’s tomato-rich flavors while making the meal more satisfying and nutritious. Cooking takes around 1 to 2 hours, but the time and effort are worth it.
6. Cucumber Tomato Salad
This cucumber tomato salad makes a fresh and juicy tandem to your meatball sub. It’s simple and light, so it doesn’t detract the attention from your meatball sub, the main treat. To make this salad, you only need 10 minutes and the following ingredients: English cucumber slices, tomatoes, red onion, fresh herbs, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.
7. Air Fryer Broccoli
Enjoy your meatball sub with this easy and guiltlessly healthy air fryer broccoli. Although there are many ways to make broccoli as a side, air frying is the quickest way to get it crispy, browned, and tasty. Indeed, it only needs 7 minutes plus these other ingredients: olive oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
8. Baked Zucchini with Parmesan
Another crispy, tender, and healthy side dish is this baked zucchini with parmesan cheese. Although other recipes have the zucchini cut into circles, this one does it lengthwise; thus, the baked veggies look like nutritious French fries. Besides the parmesan, the zucchini is also flavored with a ton of herbs – thyme, oregano, basil, and parsley – rendering a side with a complexly beautiful taste.
9. Olive Garden Salad
If you’re a fan of Olive Garden, you’d love this copycat recipe of their salad with your meatballs sub. The flavors are fresh, juicy, complex, and light – just what you need to contrast your decadent, delicious sandwich. To make the salad, you’ll need lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, carrots, black olives, parmesan, croutons, pepperoncini, and the homemade Olive Garden salad dressing.
10. Caesar Salad
If you prefer a simpler, lighter side dish, make a side of this Caesar salad recipe. You’ll need only some romaine lettuce, parmesan cheese, croutons, and Caesar salad dressing, which can be homemade for flavor or store-bought for convenience. Prep time is only 30 minutes, but it could be quicker if you use store-bought dressing.
11. Beetroot and Feta Cheese Salad
Leafy salads, like Caesar and the Olive Garden salad, are great with meatball subs, but if you want more texture, try this recipe. It has chunks of sweet beetroot and salty feta cheese – flavors that contrast beautifully and are brought together by the simple lemon vinaigrette. The colors are also attractive, with the white feta cheese chunks popping against the dark red-violet beetroot cubes.
12. Italian Salad
This leafy and light Italian salad goes great with many protein dishes, including meatballs. Although bottled Italian dressings exist, this one recommends making them from scratch for the freshest, brightest, and most comforting flavors. The sauce flavors the salad’s components: romaine lettuce, red bell pepper, hothouse cucumbers, carrots, grape tomatoes, pitted olives, and Ricotta Salata or feta cheese.
13. Mediterranean Wedge Salad
If you want to divert from Italian flavors, make this Mediterranean wedge salad as your meatball sub side dish. It’s a creative twist on a classic wedge salad in that it has the usual iceberg lettuce. However, the blue cheese dressing and garnishes are replaced with salty olives, pickled red onions, and creamy feta dressing. These replacements bring fresh flavors reminiscent of a Mediterranean coastline restaurant.
14. Marinated Roasted Bell Peppers
Italian marinated peppers make a great side or topping to meatball subs. They add subtle yet distinct flavors to the treat and complement the primarily Italian taste of the sub. As this is marinated, you’d have to make it in advance. It’s also good to prepare the recipe in bulk so you can use the extra for other dishes, like pizza.
