Cheeseburger Sliders

In this dish for cheeseburger sliders, I first did my research on how to properly prepare a slider, what I found was very similar but very different. The most common thing I found was the over abundance of onions being used. Whether to lay them down first or to put them down after the burger was on the flat top. While it might also seem like a no brainer, the best way to cook sliders is on a large commercial Griddle, for this recipe I used our American Steam Griddle.  After some trial testing I figured out that I like putting the onion down first, for a couple of reasons 1) the onions helped create steam to perfume the air around where the burger was being cooked. 2) it allowed the grease from the burger to drip down onto the onions aiding in their caramelization. I did pretreat the onions with salt to help drawl out the moisture and jump start the caramelization process. I also save some of the bacon grease from the bacon jam that I made and drizzled that on the burgers as well as the onions, but more on that later. Lets begin with making the cheese spread that will go on the sliders.

Cheese Spread:

16 oz cheddar cheese, Shredded

8 oz Cream cheese, Softened

4 Tbl Dijon Mustard

3 Tbl Whole Grain Mustard

1 Tea Franks Red Hot

1 Tea Salt

  • Combine all these ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly

Bacon Jam:

1 LBS Bacon

1 Tbl Butter

½ C Brown Sugar

1 Tea Tomato Paste

Pinch of Black Pepper

Let’s Get Started – Creating Our Mustard Cheeseburger Sliders

  • Dice bacon up into small pieces
  • Cook in skillet on medium heat until bacon is halfway cooked
  • Drain off all the grease and keep it for later
  • Return bacon to pan and add in butter, brown sugar, tomato paste and black pepper.
  • Cook on low for 5-8 minutes
  1. Smear the cheese spread on the top bun and the bacon jam on the bottom bun.
  2. Preheat your American Griddle to 350 degrees. Really any griddle will work here. You want to avoid using skillets though as they tend to have a lot of hot and cold spots.
  3. Now it’s time to start cooking, grab white onions and dice them into a small dice. Put them in a bowl with some salt and allow the salt to dry out the onions. About 10 minutes, then drain the onions and reserve the drippings for later.
  4. Using 2-3oz beef burgers put down equal amount of onions on the your commercial griddle. Form the onions into a round pile roughly half an inch wider than the burger patty. Allow them to cook for 10 minutes.
  5. After 10 minutes put the burger patty on top of the onions and season- I like to use Lawry’s seasoning salt.  Drizzle your bacon fat and onion juice on top of the burgers at this point.
  6. The burger will take about 10 minutes to cook. You never want to touch the burger though, just let it sit atop the onions and steam. No need to flip it either.
  7. Once they are almost done, put the bottom bun on them that has the bacon jam on it and let the burger heat up the jam and steam the bun.
  8. Remove the onions, burger and bun from griddle and put the top bun on there, Wrap them up it deli sheets and allow it to steam for a minute so the top bun is soft and the cheese spread has melted into the burger patty. 

Enjoy your cheeseburger sliders!