---
title: 'The Ultimate Meatball Sub…is a Burger?! | With Babish'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=fypEVSous_g'
video_id: 'fypEVSous_g'
date: 2026-07-19
duration_sec: 1237
channel: 'Binging with Babish'
---

# The Ultimate Meatball Sub…is a Burger?! | With Babish

> Source: [The Ultimate Meatball Sub…is a Burger?! | With Babish](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fypEVSous_g)

## Summary

In this video, Babish explores the concept of a meatball sub reimagined as a burger, addressing the structural flaws of traditional meatball sandwiches. He develops a 'meatball smash witch' by smashing seasoned meatballs into patties, creating a more stable and easier-to-eat version. The episode covers homemade buns, sauce, Calabrian chili mayo, and the cooking process, culminating in a taste test and final verdict.

### Key Points

- **Introduction of Beyond Babish** [00:01] — Babish announces the launch of his second channel, Beyond Babish, featuring ranking, reaction, and travel content.
- **The Meatball Sub Problem** [01:46] — Babish identifies the meatball sub as an inefficient sandwich due to spheres in bread, leading to the idea of a meatball smash burger.
- **Inspiration for Smash Witch** [02:00] — He gets the idea for a meatball smash witch, inspired by smashburgers, and discovers it already exists on TikTok.
- **Making Potato Buns** [02:47] — Babish makes potato buns using bread flour, potato flour, butter, milk, and egg, with a detailed dough preparation process.
- **Tomato Sauce Preparation** [05:18] — He makes a smooth yet textured tomato sauce with San Marzano tomatoes, onion, garlic, anchovy paste, and basil, simmered for 45 minutes to an hour.
- **Calabrian Chili Mayonnaise** [07:43] — Babish makes a spicy Calabrian chili mayo using egg, lemon juice, garlic, Dijon mustard, and Calabrian chilies, emulsified with vegetable oil.
- **Meatball Preparation** [10:04] — He prepares finely textured meatballs with a mix of beef, pork, and lamb, incorporating sautéed onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg, and Parmesan, shaped into 4-ounce balls.
- **Smashing and Cooking** [13:19] — The meatballs are smashed into thin patties, cooked with a crust, topped with mozzarella, and assembled with Calabrian chili mayo and sauce.
- **Iterative Improvements** [14:54] — After initial attempts, Babish adjusts ball size to 3 ounces and changes assembly order to improve structural integrity.
- **Final Verdict** [17:30] — The final sandwich is stable, flavorful, and easier to eat than a traditional meatball sub, with Babish declaring it a success.

### Conclusion

Babish successfully creates a meatball smash witch that solves the structural issues of a traditional meatball sub, offering a more convenient and equally delicious alternative. He encourages viewers to try the recipe and submit ideas for future episodes.

## Transcript

the launch of our second channel, Beyond Babish. This is where you're going to find our ranking, reaction, travel content, all [music] the fun, wild, crazy ideas that we want to explore in one convenient place. We just premiered
influencer [music] food products. Let me hate you. Check it out in the video description. I hope you guys enjoy.
Meatball sandwiches. Meatball subs. Meatball grinders. Meatball heroes. Meatball grinders. Meatball heroes. Meatball. sandwiches full of spheres. They [music] make no sense. Is there a better way? I
make no sense. Is there a better way? I have no idea. Let's watch and find out.
channel for over 7 years. In fact, they were my first ever sponsor. Squarespace own site [music] and accomplish your goals online. Whether you're building a give you hilarious episode ideas, Squarespace has you covered. I'm having
a lot of fun making food ranking videos and my favorite part is seeing what you guys suggest. So, I built a site where you can submit your episode ideas. Go to rankedwithbish.com and submit yours. And coming soon, [music] you can see all my
ranked lists. Squarespace's brand new designer templates make it so easy to one of your own. Head to [music] squarespace.com for a free trial and use code Babage for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. The
meatball sub, everybody's favorite and least efficient sandwich. It is after all spheres inside of bread which makes no geometrical sense. So that got me thinking, can we do better? And one night when I was obviously stoned, I had
the [music] idea for a meatball smash witch. Hear me out. Smashburgers start as meatballs, right? [music] And then you smash them down with a thick spatula burgers. So why not start with a meatball, smash it, and then build a
meatball sub in burger format. And here I was thinking I had had an original idea. Boy, I was proud of myself. But then I Googled it and obviously somebody actually on TikTok. So, credit where credit is due. It's a great idea and I
want to try to bring it to its ultimate execution. It's going to look awesome. I think it's going to taste awesome. And what else do we need? That's It's a meatball parm. Let's get started. >> Buns. Do uh you want to turn this bit
tell you about the buns we're making today. They are a potato bio hybrid between. But why would you be getting between them? We have our challenge butter here. I'm
going to get 85 g of unsalted challenge butter. Now, I need these guys broken down into small pieces that I can add temperature, which I annoyingly forgot to do last night, which means now I need
to wait a while. probably about 45 minutes hour. So, first thing we need to do is combine the dries. I have 415 gram of bread flour, 75 grams of potato flour, not potato starch, potato flour, 10 g of kosher salt, 20 g of granulated
sugar, 2 and 1/4 teaspoons or one packet of instant yeast. Go and whisk these guys together until they are homogeneous. Now, for the liquids, I have 200 mil of water and 100 g of whole milk. I'm going to heat up the milk
and then that should give us a mixture about 105 110° F. Why crack the egg into the bowl first? Well, I'll tell you because if you crack the egg into that bowl and you drop a piece of shell, you're so I didn't even mean for that to
we're going to mix this until it's a shaggy dough. Then once it starts coming emulsifying the butter in, which we're going to do one piece at a time, so it's going to take a while. dough is starting to stick to the bottom and it stands a
risk of permanentizing if it dries out. So, I'm just going to scrape it up real the way through your butter, you should start reaching a stage where you notice of the bowl. By the time we add all the butter, it should be a nice dough.
We're going to perform the window pane test. Grabbing a hunk of dough and stretching it to make sure that we can see light through it. We got a great dough here. Passes the window pane test with flying colors. It is sticky, but
it's not so sticky that it's like batter or anything. It's a very high hydration dough. Let's gather this guy up. It's because my hands are too sticky. challenge butter. Rub down the hands with it. That ought to lubricate you
hands. See? Now, I'm also going to butter up our receiving bowl here. And plop. This guy is going to bulk ferment for anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour
in size, but we want it to grow by like 50 to 75%. You might notice I've turned oven, when I let the light run for about 20 minutes, gets up to about 85 90° F.
that. But that makes a pretty good proofing environment for this dough. sauce. Did you decide to make sauce because it's measurably better than the jarred stuff, or to pad this episode's run
>> Can it be both? I made tomato sauce both because it is better than the jarred stuff and because I want it to pad the episode's runtime. YouTube's algorithm, am I right? So, I want my sauce to be relatively smooth, but I also want it to
have some texture. That way, it's more grippy than slippy. I have a 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes here that I'm going to lightly puree. That looks cool. That looks like it has some texture to it without being completely smooth. It
was probably right where I want to live. Next up, we have some onion. Mince this pretty dang fine. So to make the tomato sauce, I'm going to start by heating about 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in a highwalled sauté pan.
onion. Sweating that for 3 to 5 minutes or until translucent. I'm crushing in three large cloves of garlic. Sautéing for about 30 seconds or until fragrant. 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes. Adding about 1/4 cup of tomato paste and
a couple teaspoons of anchovi paste. Sautéing that for another 30 seconds. a nice stem of basil and a parmesan rind. Some dried oregano for that Italian American zing. Now we're just going to keep this moving very low
simmer for at least 45 minutes. I'm going to try to go like hour and a half. I want it to reduce down and get thicker and I want the flavors to be pretty intense. That dough is looking proofed AF. We need to weigh it and we need to
make 10 buns from it. This is my problem. Every single time I make buns eight. or first I made six, then I made the right size, well, it's not my fault.
You want to make sure that the plastic wrap is very well lubricated. If it sticks at all to the buns, it will deform them and it will show through in going back in the proof for probably another 45 minutes to an hour until they
are doubled in size. All right, let's give our sauce a taste. forward. You can't go back. You can always add water. Pick out our basil and parmesan rind and junk. Now, you could,
olive oil. That's more traditional, but I like to use butter. It makes it way richer and way more subtle and and wonderful. This amount of sauce, probably going to do 2 tablespoons. I'm killing the heat and I'm letting the
butter. Now, you could refrigerate this or I'm just going to keep it warm until we're ready to serve. Next up, I'm going to make a Calabrian chili [music] mayonnaise. Calabrian chilis are having a big moment right now. and rightfully
so. They're fruity, they're zesty, they're spicy, they're the perfect accompaniment to a meatball smash witch. So, I'm going to crack one egg into a want a tall, narrow container that's the exact same width as your blender head.
juicy looking lemon, so I don't know if I'm going to add probably about a tablespoon's worth of lemon juice. We're also adding one clove of garlic. A whole mayonnaise is a lot, but I want this to be a really garlicky mayonnaise. Maybe
3/4 of a teaspoon Dijon mustard. Okay, so I'm adding five whole Calabrian chilies, which is going to make this both quite spicy and hopefully quite red. That's really what I'm after. Let's blend this together.
of vegetable oil that I'm going to slowly stream down the side. You can see that the the oil is settled on top. There's some goo stuck to the side, but for the most part, we got the oil settled on top.
Start pulsing up slowly from the bottom. And this gu is way too thin. Luckily, we And this gu is way too thin. Luckily, we can usually save that with an extra egg.
Make sure you hit it with salt. About 3/4 of a teaspoon, I'd say. Looks like a sauce to me. It's definitely not mayonnaise, but I think container. It is rounded on the bottom, and I was wondering if that was going to
me, and it turns out it did. All right, let's try that again. There we go. I can feel it. That's stuff. Yeah, it's still a little thin, but it's not nearly as drippy as before. This is a much thicker emulsion. The
buns are nearly finished proving. So, now I'm going to get an egg wash ready. Tiny splash of water and a little pinch of salt. Beat this guy until it's as homogeneous as possible. Now, we're just going to brush these guys down with our
beaten egg. Now, these guys are getting sprinkled with sesame seeds. So, now these guys are going into the 350° Fahrenheit oven beautifully golden brown and register 195° at their center. All right, story
195° at their center. All right, story book burger buns. Damn, those look before we even try to do anything to them. >> Is it still a meatball if you smash it? Really, it seems like this sandwich
should be called a meat smash ball witch. Am I right? these to be very fine textured meatballs. I don't want there to be because they're going to be smash burgers. We need the onion to be
completely assimilated into the meat. So, I'm going to shred it on large holes of a box grater. And let's run a knife through them real quick. Now we've got a nice finely textured almost onion paste which I'm going to sauté along with the
cooked cuz again it's not going to have time to cook [music] when we smash. Am I right? We're going to cook off all that excess water. All right, these are starting to dry out. Picking up a little bit of color. I'm going to crush in my
big old cloves of garlic. Kill the heat. They've dried out. They So now these need to cool completely before we can put them in the meatballs. Can't imagine those will be warm for more than 5 minutes. So, building the
because we want to maximize browning. Normally, meatballs have stuff like milk And we don't necessarily need that cuz they're going to cook so quickly and that could impede browning. So, I'm going to try going without it. It's
breadrumbs here. I'm going to add one egg. Generous grating of Parmesan cheese. Probably about 1 2 oz. Teaspoon each. Kosher salt. Freshly ground black pepper. Then add a pinch of crushed red pepper, some dried oregano for the
familiar American pizzeria flavor. Normally I would do fresh parsley, fresh basil in a meatball, but again, I'm trying to preserve its searingness. If I put fresh herbs in there, those would burn. And so are these.
happens. Half teaspoon each dried parsley, dried basil. Now I'm going to mix this egg in. Creates the sort of very, very dry pinade. We need the and this is what's going to help do that. This guy is fully cooled. Let's
just boop get that mixed in. Now, for the meat, I'm doing a mix of three different meats. I got beef, I got pork, and I have lamb. I'm using that in place of the traditional ve because lamb has more flavor to it. And I want these to
be really intensely flavored because they're going to be so thin. So, we need to be assertive. I'm going to break this up a little bit just so it's easier to incorporate this mush. That was a half pound each. So that's a pound and a half
total meat. You can use whatever mix you want. Really got to press and smear. Otherwise, you're going to have chunks of of our pinade throughout. That's normally you wouldn't want to overwork the meat for a burger because it will
cause it to have a tight texture. It won't be as moist. But now smash burgers are mostly surface area. We're going to have some substantiative meat in there. Really, we just need to spread it out, get a beautiful crust on it, and that's
it. Do big ones because I want them to be thick. I want them to have volume. So, I'm going to do, I think, 4 oz smashers. Let's throw down on one side. It's pretty common practice to throw down your meatball for a smash burger.
over, and then smash it. See, it helps it not stick to the spat as much. I want these to be pretty thin, but I do want them to have some depth, and I need them to be much bigger than my bun because they will shrink. Topping with a
slice of mozzarella. I'm going to dress my bun with some of this Cabrian chili mayo. And then the top bun, some of our sauce. See if we have ourselves something resembling a meatball sub. Oh yeah, it's a juicy juicy guy. Let's see
yeah, it's a juicy juicy guy. Let's see what happens here. sub, but it's so much easier to eat. [laughter] You can fit it in your mouth. It wasn't meatbally enough. Like a meatball sub should be like so
meatbally, but it was Bali. You know, it was Bali. [music] It was balling. So, a across the finish line. That was a good thickness. It was generous. So, this is going to be pretty stacked. And I think it's going to look so right once they're
dipped in sauce. What time is it? Oh, it's 5:30. That's not so bad. Thought it I'm going to be done by dinner time. Right on time. Am I right, folks? We'll Right on time. Am I right, folks? We'll be right back.
>> I got your two balls in your sandwich right here. One over here and one over here. Remember, go a little too big cuz it's going to shrink. Let's make sure they get a good crust on them. I'm going to hit both sides with the spicy
aioli. Push it all the way to the edge. This is about. So, I got some really nice pesto here. Oh yeah, look at those. Those are looking good. Little dunk in
the sauce. Okay, there's one. Easy does it. I'm [clears throat] placing a slice of proolone and a slice of mozzarella. Sandwich his best buddy right on top.
There we go. Almost forgot the dang old cheese. There we go. And there's [music] our top bun. And this doesn't look right. [laughter] The cheese really needs to be melted on the burger, doesn't it? Oh no, it's all
the burger, doesn't it? Oh no, it's all slipping out. Okay, that's interesting. First off, that's stupid delicious. Second, it's slippery. We can't do the sauce like that. Okay, attempt number three. The sauce on the bottom
destabilize the whole thing. And I think these balls are too big. And bring them down to three ounces. And these just are just not gonna brown very evenly. And that. When I get to this point in a an episode and I'm not sure if it's going
to work or not, I start to wonder if I were to spend this amount of time on an conclusion that it's better to just have a meatball sub, would you still want to see that video? Let me know in the comments. Flip that guy.
Not as smashed burgery as I would like, but that's okay. Let's throw some of our but that's okay. Let's throw some of our sauce down on each patty. Spread that out a bit. Top with our cheese
thusly. Little bit of pesto on the bottom. Just a little. Actually, why don't we top them with another dollop of sauce just so we have some visual. There we go. On.
On. Now, top bun gets splice. The spicy Calabrian chili mayo. Why not? A little splash of pesto. Splash down. Boom. Oh, look at that. Okay, that looks
magazine ready. Wow. You can see all the sauces. So now the only issue has been structural integrity. Yeah. The sauce makes it so slippery.
It's cheesy as hell. Super flavorful. Distinctly meatball parm. If you just made the meatball and used this bread and like made a sub format, it'd be great. But like, I don't know.
one hand and just being [music] able to take a bite. Being able to get a little problem with meatball subs. It's like you're sometimes you have to take bites of the bread just to get back to the meat. You're like, "Okay, bread time.
Time to do some work." Okay, time to have some fun meat. You might not get cheese in every bite. It's it's a it's a bit of a a game of um a game and a game doesn't play that. There was an issue with stability in the beginning, but
it's totally staying together. Nothing's slipping out. I can squeeze it. I can take bites out of it. Nothing's coming out. God, you could probably do half the cuz there's so much of it. You probably just do one slice of proolone, one slice
of mud. I'm going to go eat this and clean up this atrocity later. But thank you try this for yourself. You could just do it with meatballs and sauce, and call it a day. It would still be awesome. Oh, but you add this these
other elements, the creamy and spicy mayonnaise and the and the the the rich mayonnaise and the and the the the rich herbaceious pesto and Oh, this is so special. I'm so happy this is my dinner. Oh my god. And perfect timing. 6:05. I'm
eating in a normal hour tonight. That's fantastic. So, what did we learn today? never doubt me ever again when it comes to the matter of balls. Good enough for me know what you want to see me ball up and smash next here on Babish's in
Instagram YouTube profile. Thanks again to my long-term partner Squarespace for to rankedwithbish.com [music] to submit your ideas for what you think see as a guest. While you're there, admire the smooth template designed by
creating your website, Squarespace can definitely help. In just one click, you and fonts that can be applied to any template. [music] You can create an entire site in just a few minutes. Their SEO tools help your site reach its
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purchase of a website or domain. Hey folks, I am very excited to announce the Babish. This is where you're going to find our ranking, reaction, travel content, all the fun, wild, [music] crazy ideas that we want to explore in
one convenient place. We just premiered our first episode over there, ranking [music] influencer food products. Let me hate you. Check it out in the video hate you. Check it out in the video description. I hope you guys enjoy.