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This vegan meatball sub starts with a homemade blue bread roll and is stuffed with zucchini bunny meatballs and topped with zucchini marinara. The bunny shapes are optional, but make this a fun vegan easter recipe for the whole family. If you’ve been looking for a healthy meatball recipe that’s high in protein without any animal products, you found it!

This recipe makes 4 vegan meatball subs.

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Vegan Sandwich Roll Recipe
• Vegan Meatball Recipe
• Ingredient Substitutions
• Nutritional Information
• Contact Me with Questions
• Similar Recipes

Who else is having a zucchini problem at their house? I only have one zucchini plant, and I’m getting almost a zucchini a day! It’s a lot to use up! I went on a road trip to Portland this summer, and when I got back, I felt like I needed to start charging the zucchinis rent for all the space they were taking up! This recipe uses up 4 (normal sized) zucchini, and if you make zucchini chips on the side, you can use up even more! If that’s a little too much zucchini for you, I also recommend serving this with a side of my colorful potato salad.

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Ingredients for Colored Bread Rolls Recipe

• 1 tablespoon (16g) organic or vegan sugar
• 1 packet (or 2 ¼ teaspoons or 7g) of yeast
• 1 ⅓ cups (300g) filtered water, heated to 110º
• 3 cups (390g) unbleached flour + 2 tablespoons (16g), if needed
• 1 ½ tablespoons (24g) of vegan yogurt (unsweetened, unflavored)
• ½ tablespoon (11g) sea salt
• vegan food coloring (optional)

Vegan Blue Bread Dough Directions

prep time: 15 minutes | rising time: 1 hour | bake time: 16 minutes

Mix 1 tablespoon (16g) vegan sugar, 2 ¼ teaspoons (7g) yeast, and 1 ⅓ cups (300g) warm water (between 100º and 110ºF). Let it sit for a few minutes until the yeast dissolves and it starts to get foamy on top.

Measure or weigh half the flour (1 ½ cups or 195g) and ½ tablespoon (11g) salt into the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Affix the stand mixer with the dough hook. If you’re using powdered food coloring, you can add that now too. For instance, when I use blue spirulina, I add 1 tablespoon (3g) after the salt.

Add 1 ½ tablespoons (24g) of vegan yogurt. If you’re using gel coloring or liquid food coloring, mix it into the yogurt first. I use wilton sky blue gel color for the ones in these pictures. You can check out my list of vegan food coloring for other bread-coloring options.

Add the yeast mixture.

Mix the dough using the dough hook for 2-3 minutes. If you don’t have a stand mixer, use your hands or a baking spatula to mix it.

Add the remaining flour (1 ½ cups or 195g).

Mix the dough again. This time you’ll mix a little longer because you want to knead the dough. Using the stand mixer, this could be 2-5 minutes, but by hand could take longer. You want to mix until the dough stops sticking to the sides of the bowl. If the dough is still sticking to the sides after a few minutes, add 2 tablespoons (16g) flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Shape into 4 rolls and place onto a baking stone or parchment paper covered baking sheets. You can use utensils or foil or whatever you have to keep them from spreading too much while they rise.

Cover with a kitchen towel or a piece of cling wrap. Let rise for 45-60 minutes. If your house is colder than 80º, you may need to set it on the stove while your oven heats up. Or set it in the sun if you don’t have a range.

Heat your oven to 360º.

Bake the rolls for 16 minutes.

Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before removing.

Ingredients for Vegan Zucchini Meatballs Recipe

• 2 teaspoons of olive oil (if you avoid oil, replace with water)
• half an onion, finely diced
• 8 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 4 average-sized zucchinis, finely diced
• ½ cup vegan broth
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon italian seasoning
• 1 cup vital wheat gluten
• one 29-ounce can (822g) of tomato sauce

How to Make Vegan Zucchini Meatballs

sauté time: 10 min | prep time: 20 min | bake time: 40 min

Sauté the finely diced veggies in olive oil (or water if you avoid oil).

Process 1 ⅓ cups of the sautéed veggies with the veggie broth in the food processor fitted with the S blade. If you don’t have a food processor , you can use a blender. Leave the rest of the veggies in the pan for now.

Heat your oven to 375º.

Mix the gluten with the blended mixture. There are 3 ways to do this: a food processor fitted with the S blade, a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, or by hand. This is what the dough should look like when it’s done.

Form the dough (using your hands) into the shapes you desire. If you don’t care about cute meatballs, make round meatballs. I chose to use an animal rice mold to make bunny-shaped meatballs.

Set the meatballs onto a baking stone or parchment paper covered baking sheets.

Bake for 40 minutes at 375º.

Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before removing.

How to Make Vegan Zucchini Marinara

prep time: 2 min | cook time: 5 min

Add tomato sauce to the pan with the remaining sautéed veggies.

Cover pan and heat on low-medium.

Add the homemade vegan meatballs to this marinara, once it thickens, to let them soak up some of the flavor.

How to Assemble the Vegan Zucchini Meatball Subs

prep time: 8 minutes

Cut a lengthwise slice down each bread roll.

Spoon some sauce inside each cut.

Add 3 meatballs to each sandwich, side by side.

Top with more sauce, if there’s any leftover in the pan.

Add vegan cheese (optional).

Serve with virgin moscow mules. This will be a fun and new vegan dinner at-a-bar-but-really-at-home experience with your family or friends.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Vegan Sugar: For the sugar in this recipe, you can use any number of sugars, as long as they’re vegan: sucanat, coconut sugar, raw sugar, organic sugar, or demurara. If you’re not sure if your sugar is vegan, you can contact the company and ask, but basically, just avoid conventional white sugar or granulated sugar, and you should be ok.
• Yeast: You can use instant yeast or active yeast interchangeably in this recipe. If you don’t have yeast, try to find a recipe online that uses baking powder to make hot dog buns or sandwich rolls.
• Warm Water: If you don’t have a kitchen thermometer and your kettle doesn’t have a temperature guage on it, just use warm tap water. Use the method parents use for making baby bottles where you test a drop on the inside of your wrist. If it feels warm, but not hot, then it’s the right temp.
• Flour: If you prefer a chewier bread, replace the all-purpose flour with bread flour. Or replace 15g of the flour with 15g of vital wheat gluten.
• Vegan Yogurt: Any kind of vegan will work, as long as it doesn’t have added sugar or flavors. I usually always have my homemade yogurt in the fridge so I use that for all my baking. You can omit the yogurt if you don’t have any, but your rolls might come out a little drier.
• Salt: I use pink salt, because it has more nutrients in it. You can use any kind of salt you want.
• Food Coloring: I have used wilton gel colors and blue spirulina for this recipe, but you can look at my entire list of vegan food coloring for other options.
• Oil: If you avoid oil, sauté the veggies in 2 teaspoons of water instead.
• Onion: I always use yellow onions, because they’re sweeter, but you can use any kind of onion. If you don’t have half an onion, you can replace it with 2 teaspoons of onion powder.
• Garlic: If you don’t have fresh garlic, you can use minced or roasted garlic if you have that. You can also replace the 8 cloves of garlic with 2 teaspoons of garlic powder.
• Zucchini: The whole point of this recipe is to use up zucchini from the garden, so I’ve never tried to sub anything else for the zucchini in this recipe. However, this list of what’s in season in August, September, and October might give you some inspiration for other veggies to use. If you use other veggies, let me know how it goes!
• Vegan Broth: I usually make my own veggie broth using vegetable bouillon. I like the Better Than Bouillon Vegetable that comes in a jar because it dissolves easily in water.
• Italian Seasoning: I don’t actually use Italian seasoning because I don’t typically buy spice blends. So, instead of 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning, you can do what I do and use ½ oregano, ¼ teaspoon basil, and ¼ teaspoon thyme.
• Vital Wheat Gluten: I buy this in the bulk section at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco because they are the only place I have found that has it organic. However, you should be able to find non-organic gluten in most stores.
• Tomato Sauce: In the U.S., tomatoes sauce cans come in a few sizes, but the most popular ones are 15 ounce (425g) and 29 ounce (822g). This recipe calls for around 29-30 ounces of tomato sauce, but you can use more if that’s what you have. I always look for organic or non-GMO tomato sauce since tomatoes are often genetically modified.

Nutrition Facts

• Servings: 4
• Calories per serving: 720
• Calcium per serving: 176mg
• Cholesterol per serving: 0mg
• Dietary Fiber per serving: 9g
• Folate per serving: 273mcg
• Iron per serving: 10mg
• Potassium per serving: 1,474mg
• Protein per serving: 59g
• Total Carbohydrate per serving: 107g
• Total Fat per serving: 5.5g
• Total Sugars per serving: 17g
• Sodium per serving: 2,163mg

Comments or Questions?

If you make this recipe, I would love it if you’d snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. It seriously makes my day/week/month!

Please message me (instagram or email) if you have any questions or feedback about the recipe.

Similar Recipes

If you like the colored sandwich rolls from this recipe, you might also like my rainbow bread that has instructions for both natural food coloring or regular food coloring. My burger buns are all-naturally colored, and my swirl bread has instructions for both natural colors or traditional vegan food coloring.

If you’re looking for other zucchini recipes, I have a super easy (and cute!) zucchini soup recipe that uses up 5 pounds of zucchini.

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I use mostly organic ingredients when I cook. I realize that not everyone has the disposable income to buy only organic ingredients. So, I only specify organic on the ingredients that matter: when buying the organic version is the only way to ensure that an item is vegan.

This post links to items I used when I made this recipe. If you click on the purple Buy Now button on a product page, you will go to a website (like Amazon) where you can buy the same product I used. Sometimes, the store you purchase from (Amazon, Etsy, etc.) will pay me for referring you. This costs you nothing extra, and I would never recommend a product that I don’t use. These affiliate programs help me buy the ingredients to create these recipes for you. Read more about this in my privacy policy.

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