Sliders

Homemade Sliders

One of my wife's favorite things is sliders, or as I call them Krystals. I won't get into how Krystal is better than White Castle, because frankly I don't have to. It is an understood fact that Krystal is better and I have argued the point until I was blue in the face countless times before. I digress.

To make your own sliders, start with roughly 1 lb. of ground chuck. I always use ground chuck for making burgers because you can't create a juicy burger without some fat. Next, make little balls of hamburger meat (slightly smaller than a golf ball). I happened to have my scale out when I was patting out these burgers, and each one weighted around 1.75 ounces. It is important to have consistent raw patty sizes so that you have even cook times. You don't want one burger that is way over cooked and one that is raw inside. Once you have your raw meat, don't stop there, press out each patty into a 2-inch square and place the squares on a sheet of parchment paper. Season the patties lightly with salt and pepper.

You can cook your sliders on either a stove top griddle or on a grill. Either way, you'll want to cook the burgers at a high temperature. Sliders are actually one of the only foods that I cook without taking an internal temperature. Cook the burgers just 2 minutes on each side on a hot grill and they'll turn out great.

This is also one of the only foods that I cook on my gas grill anymore. I must admit before I became an egghead, I was pretty loyal to my gas grill. I have a nice DCS stainless steel grill piped into my natural gas line - but it keeps its cover on most of the times these days. I always thought that it was such a pain and a big mess to fire up the Weber kettle whenever I wanted to grill something, but with the Egg, the lump charcoal creates less ash (and it can be put out and reused).

Back to the sliders...to finish off the perfect slider, use Hawaiian Rolls (lightly toasted with butter) for buns, then add your favorite condiments.