I love beans and beanballs are even better. This sandwich was so good. You can use homemade tomato sauce or store-bought. For store-bought sauce we love Victoria's All Natural Marinara Sauce, which you can find at Costco.
I heated a few artichoke hearts that I had chopped up and added them to the sandwich. They gave the sandwich a nice savory/brine-y flavor that cut the sweetness of the beanballs and the tomato sauce.
You could, of course, add lots of toppings to this sandwich to make it pretty deluxe. Sauteed rapini or spinach, romaine leaves, chopped olives, sweet peppers... whatever you like!
I substituted chickpea flour for the vital wheat gluten that the original recipe calls for, this made for softer beanballs. Using vital wheat gluten is ideal for a more or less true meatball texture but using chickpea flour (or even regular flour for that matter) doesn't affect the flavor by any means. Additionally, if you don't use vital wheat gluten these can easily become gluten-free beanballs!
Beanball SandwichAdapted from Veganomicon
Ingredients1 20 oz can of red kidney beans2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari2 tbsp ketchup or tomato paste2 tbsp olive oil2 cloves of garlic, finely minced½ cup breadcrumbs or gluten-free breadcrumbs¼ cup chickpea flour or vital wheat gluten½ tsp dried oregano¼ tsp cracked black pepper
Directions Preheat the oven to 375° and grease a baking sheet with olive oil.
Mash the beans with a potato masher, make sure you break down any whole beans but don’t leave yourself with complete mush, keep some texture. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix through so that everything is incorporated well. Roll the bean mixture into walnut-size balls.
Place the beanballs on the baking sheet and drizzle or spray a little olive oil on top. Bake for 15 mins, they should be lightly browned. Flip them and place them in the oven again for 10 mins. Pour ½ cup of marinara sauce on top of the beanballs and make sure they’re coated. Bake for another 5 mins.
Warm some extra sauce in a saucepan and slice a couple of submarine buns in half. When the beanballs are ready remove them from the oven, spread some sauce on the buns, and add the beanballs plus any toppings.
