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There is nothing like a saucy, cheesy, meatball parm. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to hit a great Italian deli and get the real, unadulterated thing, and every now and then, we need to settle for a chain restaurant.
But which chains make the subs that are worth our time? Who’s got the best meatball sandwich in the chain restaurant world?
I tried five popular chains to find out.
Back when I ranked Subway’s classic sandwiches, I said that it’s easy to make a meatball sub taste good, as long as the meatballs are smothered in sauce and cheese, and wrapped up in a toasty sub roll. I really thought that this was more or less the truth when I wrote it, but now having tasted the meatball subs from four other chains, I realize there’s a little more to it.
Subway’s Meatball Marinara is legitimately good. The meatballs aren’t incredible, but the thing is saucy and cheesy enough that it’s hard to tell. Plus, you can get it on Subway’s Italian Herbs and Cheese bread which works wonders. I found something wrong with every other sandwich I tried, but I’ve got nothing to complain about over here at the ‘Way. I loved this sandwich as a kid, and I love it now.
Lenny’s, a sub chain with about 100 locations across the South, is so close to serving a great meatball sub. The bread is just right. It’s full of robust marinara sauce. The cheese is abundant and melty, except it’s the cheese that I take issue with. Lenny’s is serving their subs with slices of Swiss American cheese, and it’s completely baffling. I don’t know where to begin. If mozzarella and parmesan aren’t options, what about provolone at least? What are we doing over here? This is almost there, but damn, that cheese just isn’t right.
This is absolutely fine. Not great, not bad, just fine. The sauce is a little bland, but there’s the right amount. Which Wich has mozzarella on hand, so that really helps make this feel like an upper-tier sandwich. The bread is O.K. This is fine, forgettable, and lacking any real depth of flavor, but it’s not gross, which is not something I can say for all of these.
The meatball, which is arguably the most important part of this sandwich, isn’t bad. Firehouse has done a decent job in that department, but there’s just not nearly enough sauce or cheese going on here; we’ve got a thin layer of each on top of the meatballs, but that’s it. The cheese also hardened into an extremely strange consistency almost immediately, which you can see in the photo. This is an unsettling visual that really stops you from wanting to keep eating the sandwich.
This place is a sit-down restaurant, for cryin’ out loud. I thought Carrabba’s would at least be upper-tier. Despite serving some of the strongest quality meatballs, this thing was disgusting. No melty cheese to be seen anywhere, instead only a heavy dusting of parmesan cheese that tasted like it came straight out of a packet. Though everybody else in the world seems to know that meatball sandwiches belong on some sort of hoagie or sub roll, Carrabba’s has gone a different direction, instead choosing their focaccia.
I’d be willing to let it slide if it was good focaccia, but this is not that. It’s awful. It absorbs the marinara sauce on this sandwich like a sponge, creating a sandwich wetter than a Jersey Mike’s oil bomb. Don’t be fooled, as I was, by what appears to be a toasty, crispy edge; it’s soft as cotton. As the most expensive sandwich here, this is a nightmare. Skip it.
