This is another recipe from a horseback riding club potluck. The potlucks are almost always on a Friday evening, so I need a recipe that’s easy to do after a full day of work. These were very easy, and I even made a quick homemade tomato sauce to go with them. Not to sound like Ina Garten, but store-bought sauce is obviously also totally fine. I used the Rosina angus beef meatballs – I think as far as frozen meatballs go, they are one of the best.

An important note about this recipe is that the meatballs need to be (1) the pre-cooked variety, and (2) thawed first, for the cooking time to be 30 minutes.

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5 from 1 vote

Meatball Sub Sliders

An easy slow cooker potluck or party food recipe

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time30 mins

Total Time2 hrs 15 mins

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: meatball sliders, potluck recipe, sliders

Servings: 20 sliders

Equipment

• Slow cooker

Ingredients

• 4 footlong sub rolls
• 1¾ cups tomato sauce (more if needed)
• 1 package fully cooked frozen meatballs, thawed (1 lb, or 20 count bag)
• ¾ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

• Pour sauce into slow cooker. If using my semi-homemade tomato sauce recipe, combine all sauce ingredients in the slow cooker.
• Add frozen meatballs and stir with a spatula to coat with the sauce. Add more sauce as needed if it doesn’t seem like the meatballs are all well-coated.
• Cook on high for 20 to 30 minutes. (Check after 15 minutes. If sauce is popping or splattering a lot, reduce to low.)
• Stir in shredded mozzarella.
• Reduce slow cooker to warm setting. (If yours doesn’t have a warm setting, low is fine.)
• Cut the sub rolls into slider-sized pieces that will fit one meatball each.
• Stir the meatballs to make sure cheese is distributed fairly evenly. Once cheese is melted, place one meatball onto each slider roll.

Notes

If you are using the meatballs frozen instead of thawed, cook on high for 2 hours or low for 4 hours.