I’m sharing my baked slider recipe this week for two reasons.
First, my whole family loves it, and this blog’s mission is to share family-friendly recipes. My oldest daughter actually encouraged me put this recipe on my blog earlier this month. When one of my kids loves a recipe enough to suggest I share it with the whole world, that’s saying something.
Second, Father’s Day is this week, and my dad loved to grill. When I think about foods I associate with my dad, I always imagine him out by his big grill, cheerfully cooking up burgers, tri-tip steak, or his famous seasoned shrimp.
I’m still getting the hang of cooking shrimp, but I’ve got a great hamburger slider recipe to share with you today!
Where’s the Grill?
Now, with all this talk of grilling, you may wonder why I’m posting a recipe for BAKED sliders. I’ve spent most of my adult life living in an apartment with no yard or balcony (and ergo, no grill). If you like grilled food but don’t own that particular piece of cooking equipment, you have to get creative!
This blogger’s method of baking the beef and then cutting it into patties was a perfect solution to my problem. It called for kitchen tools I already had, and lining the pan with aluminum foil made cleanup a breeze.
Let’s face it, after you grill burgers, it’s a royal pain to clean the grill. When you make hamburger sliders in the oven, cleanup is SOOO much easier. That alone is enough to make this technique a keeper.
Another bonus of using the oven is that it’s an easy way to toast your slider buns. While you could just put the patty on a bun, add toppings, and call it a night, the joy of a perfectly-toasted slider bun is totally worth an extra ten minutes to me.
How to Put Grilled Flavor in Baked Sliders
So yeah. Easy cleanup is awesome. Toasty slider buns? Also awesome.
My other favorite part about this baked slider recipe is the seasoning. I believe a burger should be flavorful enough to taste great even before you add toppings. The toppings are a good burger’s crowning glory, not a necessary antidote for blandness.
These little sliders are loaded with savory flavor, courtesy of garlic salt, pepper, and steak seasoning. Something about tossing steak seasoning into my slider beef makes me feel like a cooking rock star.
The liquid hickory smoke is optional, but if you can find some, I encourage you to give it a try. It makes these baked sliders taste like they were grilled over a wood fire. By a cowboy. Playing a guitar and singing a sad song about cleaning messy grills.
Toppings (or Not)
After you bake your sliders in the oven, go wild with whatever slider toppings you love! Here are some of our favorites:
- Cheese – Because cheese makes everything better. I used Colby this time because it’s what I had on hand, but Monterrey Jack is another favorite. Try Pepper Jack if you like things spicy. 🙂
- Crisp Lettuce and Sliced Tomato – The toppings of choice for my husband and me. I love their fresh contrast with the savory burger.
- Avocado and Bacon – Admit it; you just drooled a little when you read that.
- Nothing – My kids’ favorite “topping.”
Most of my kids like their sliders plain. No veggies. No condiments. Just a bun, a patty, and maybe some cheese. That’s why I always serve our burgers with some fresh fruit and baby carrots as side dishes.
Oh yeah, and chips. My husband insists that a meal of baked sliders is never complete without chips. I counter-insist that the chip bag stays in the cupboard until the very end of the meal, so that our children eat some fresh produce before they devour the Doritos.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Thanks for all the love, laughs, sage advice, and delicious grilled dinners on the patio. 🙂
More Great Recipes for Father’s Day:
- ½ teaspoon garlic salt
- ½ teaspoon steak seasoning (I use McCormick’s reduced-sodium blend)
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon liquid hickory smoke
- 1 pound ground beef
- Thin slices of Monterrey Jack or other cheese
- Additional toppings, optional
- Preheat oven to 375ºF. In a large bowl, combine first four ingredients. Crumble beef over seasonings and mix well.
- Line a 9”x13” pan with aluminum foil, then press the beef mixture into a rectangle on the foil. It will cover about three quarters of the bottom of the pan.
- Bake beef for 15 minutes, then remove from oven. Lift foil from pan, drain liquid, then place foil on a large plate or cutting board. Cut beef into twelve equal patties.
- Arrange the bottoms of twelve slider buns in the 9”x13” pan. Top the bun halves with slices of cheese, then with the cooked patties. Place tops of buns on patties, then cover the pan with foil and bake for 10 minutes.
- Serves sliders warm, with additional toppings if desired.
If you’re using very lean beef (like 93/7), add 2 tablespoons of water to the seasonings so the resulting patties will be juicier.
You could also slice the cooked beef into full-size burger patties. I go with sliders because it's easier to portion them for my kids. And because they're cute. The sliders, I mean. And the kids.
