Easy Meatball Sliders
These cheesy Easy Meatball Sliders are an easy game day appetizer recipe that the whole family will love!
With the Big Game coming up, this week is all about what to feed your friends and family on game day. We always have a ton of people over for a party on game day, there is nothing better than cheering on your team with good friends, and of course food! Since we have so many people to feed I try to put a few dishes on the menu that use a common ingredient so I can buy it in bulk and save a little money.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Thank you!
Let’s start with the main event, my meatball sliders are a favorite at parties and they are perfect for game day. One look at those cheesy bites of delicious, saucy, meatballs, and you just want to dig in! They are super easy to make too. Just put the bottoms of your slider rolls in a casserole dish and cover them with sauce. Next add your cooked meatballs (and a little more sauce because you can never have enough!). Then top them with lots of mozzarella cheese. Place the top slider buns over the meatballs and brush them with olive oil and sprinkle them with mixture of Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese.
Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 10 minutes covered, then remove the foil and continue baking for another 10 minutes. You end up with mini meatball subs oozing with stringy mozzarella cheese. These are one of my all time favorite party foods and I usually have to make a double batch because I can’t eat just one!
What goes better with subs than pizza, am I right? With some of the extra ingredients I can whip up some simple French Bread Pizza Sticks I showed you yesterday. The great thing about pizza is that everyone loves it, young or old, and you can customize it to fit all different tastes. That’s important now that game days involve kids and adults!
Speaking of kids they always request that I make these Pizza Wontons when we’re having people over. They are really easy to make and there is nothing better than crunching into a wonton filled with gooey cheese, pepperoni, and sauce. Yum!
Easy Meatball Sliders
Ingredients
- 12 Slider buns
- 12 Meatballs, , cooked
- 2 c Ragu® Traditional Sauce
- 2 c Mozzarella cheese, , shredded
- 3 tbsp Parmesan cheese
- 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Place the bottom half of the slider buns in a casserole dish.
- Spoon a little sauce on each bun then place a meatball on each one, and add just a little more sauce over the meatballs.
- Cover the meatballs in mozzarella cheese.
- Place the top buns over the meatballs and brush them with a little oil.
- Combine the Parmesan cheese and the Italian seasoning then sprinkle it over the buns.
- Cover the dish with foil and bake for 10 minutes, then remove the foil and continue baking for another 10 minutes.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
So these were insanely good, except the bottom bun got disgustingly soggy. I had to remove the bottom buns completely. Any tips to avoid soggy bread?
Luckily we didn’t have that problem but I wonder if putting the cheese down first, then sauce, then meatballs would fix the problem? You could also try doing meatball, putting sauce on meatball then adding cheese. If you try it again let me know if that helps!
Read the comments before I made them, and put the cheese on the bottom before making them. It definitely helped with sogginess! Sooooo good! Will make again.
Awesome! Thanks for letting us know!
I would love to make these for our church fellowship meal. Do you think they would be to soggy if they sat in a warm pan for about 2 hours?
I think they will be fine. I suggest putting some sauce over the meatballs rather than under to keep the bottom buns from getting soggy. Just spoon some sauce over each meatball.
Can you use frozen meatballs with this?
Yes, but I would cooked them before hand.
What size casserole dish should
Be used for this? Thanks!
You can use a 9×13 inch dish
I would like to make the meatballs sliders. I have a package of frozen cooked meatballs. I assume I should defrost the meatballs completely before making the recipe. Please update the recipe. I have all of the ingredients!
The recipe calls for cooked meatballs so you will need to cook your frozen meatballs before making this dish.
The frozen meatballs are pre cook. They don’t need cooking again correct?
Correct 🙂
A friend made these for our Pokeno group. She heated frozen pre-cooked Swedish meatballs on a sheet tray in the oven, which helped eliminate excess moisture and grease. Once heated through, she added them to Marinara sauce and minimized amount of sauce on slider to avoid soggy bottom. They were delicious!
I LOVE Pokeno!!!
So raw meatballs correct?
No we used frozen meatballs that we had cooked with the sauce so they were warmed through
Love all your slider recipes….always looking for new tasty sliders!
Thank you! Hope you enjoy them 🙂
What brand of rolls do you use typically? Do you use Hawaiian rolls?
Yes, we almost always use Hawaiian rolls
Absolutely loved these! So easy and delicious!
I made these tonight and cooked the already cooked frozen meatballs……and there was something about them that didn’t taste right at all.
Were they store bought or homemade frozen meatballs?
Thank you! These are great. Kids loved them. Only put sauce on top shelf nice people kept saying they were soggy. Really good idea though.
I’m so glad you and the kids liked them!
Made this for a football party and everyone LOVED them! So flavorful and easy. Didn’t change anything about the recipe. Will be making again for sure!
Love hearing that Erin!
My mom made this and now i want MORE
Loved these! After seeing the soggy bottom comments, I decided to toast the bottoms for about 3 minutes while the oven was warming up. The toasted bottoms really helped to give the slider a solid bottom.
I make this all the time when it’s my turn to cook. It’s my fiancé’s favorite and he begs me to get the stuff every time we go to the store.
Yay! We love hearing that.
Made meatballs sliders for work.
They were a big hit .Thank you for sharing this recipe !
What are Hawaiian rolls
Hi Lucy, they are slider rolls or buns. If you can’t find that brand any small slider bun will work 🙂
All these recipies on this page looks amazing
This was a great recipe. Easy to make, kids loved it. Adults too. Shared recipe with a friend.
Making this again right now! My SUPER picky husband and boys (ages 5 and 2) absolutely love it and it’s SOn easy! Thank you!
Can these be made ahead and then just warmed up or would they get soggy ?
I think it will get soggy and then the bread may get over baked and hard when reheating.
Hi! I love this recipe, but since making it last I have lost the original meatball recipe and the link is no longer working. Do you have the recipe for just the meatballs?
Hi Katie, we actually used frozen meatballs for this recipe. You can use any brand you like but we prefer Cooked Perfect Italian Style if you can find them :).
Note: if using precooked, frozen meatballs, be sure to thaw and even warm the meatballs some before assembling the sliders otherwise they will still be cold! Learned the hard way☹️
This was a hit with the guys !
These were so good! I made as directed, sauce on bottom and more sauce + cheese on top. And yes, the bottom buns got soggy, but I loved it! I loved that gooey texture contrasted with the crisp top. Mmmmm, so good! This is going from a one-time SuperBowl appetizer to regular rotation.
Thanks!
Love this! Thank you so much for this.
I tried this as written the first time, but made adjustments the second time. I used meatless meatballs from Trader Joe’s, two per roll. Instead pasta sauce I used pizza sauce. The pasta sauce seemed too runny the first time. For the topping I used 2 tlbs butter, 2 cloves of minced garlic, and about 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning. The topping in the recipe the first time was dry and didn’t really add much in my opinion. This time around it was a hit!