I keep a gallon bag of meatballs in the freezer for a quick dinner. It’s one of my “emergency” meals. Don’t feel like cooking? Grab the bag of meatballs and a bag of marinara from the freezer in the garage.

If the oven and stovetop could turn themselves on, dinner would cook itself.

The preferred method for consuming meatballs in our house is sandwiched inside a crunchy baguette, smothered with stretchy, melty mozzarella cheese.

The other preferred method is sliced on top of our favorite pizza crust, baked with stretchy, melty mozzarella cheese.

You can’t go wrong either way. But who doesn’t love homemade pizza?

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Meatball Sub Pizza

Leftover meatballs get new life on top of a meatball sub pizza.

Ingredients

• Your favorite pizza dough (or mine), ready to stretch and bake
• Olive oil, for brushing
• 1/2 cup marinara
• 8-12 leftover meatballs, cooked (and thawed, if previously frozen)
• Salt
• Pepper
• 4 oz grated mozzarella

Instructions

1. Place a pizza stone in the top 1/3 of your oven and increase oven to 550 (500 if your oven doesn't go that high), letting it hold at temperature for at least 30 minutes. (If you're not using a pizza stone, just have your baking sheet nearby.)
2. Dust a pizza peel or your baking sheet with a light dusting of flour and a couple of generous pinches of cornmeal and set aside.
3. Cut each meatball into 3-4 slices.
4. Gently stretch the pizza dough in to a 12-14 inch round or divide into 3 portions and stretch, for individual-sized pizzas.
5. Brush a ~1-inch border of olive oil around the edge of the pizza dough.
6. Spread a thin layer of marinara over the pizza crust (depending on how thinly you stretched your pizza, you might not use it all).
7. Sprinkle with 3/4 of the mozzarella, top with meatball slices, and then the remainder of the cheese.
8. Transfer your pizza from the pizza peel to baking stone (or place your baking sheet in the oven).
9. Bake for 7-9 minutes for a single large pizza (5-7 for individual pizzas), until the dough is blistered, the edges are golden brown and crispy, and the cheese starts to brown.
10. Remove from oven, slice, and serve.

Notes

Yields: 1 large pizza or 3 individual pizzas

Source: Confections of a Foodie Bride

Estimated time: 1 hour 15 minutes