Hello friends! It’s another Tasty Tuesday! And we have a really fun, easy and delicious recipe for you today! Fast and Easy Sliders! And they are so good, they will literally fly off the platter!

But before we start, I want to thank my husband Troy who helped inspire this post, photograph it, and cook it! Troy has been making sliders for our family for maybe 10 years now. He has a lovely repertoire of specialties, and sliders is on the list! So I asked if he would help me share this recipe on the blog and he graciously agreed! Thank you, Troy!

And now let’s begin!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs Ground Chuck
• 6 Slices of American Cheese
• 12 Slider Buns
• 1 Medium Onion
• Salt
• Pepper
• Tomato
• Lettuce
• Pickles
• Ketchup
• Mustard

I purchased the 3 lb package of ground beef chuck and sliced it in half. Wrap and freeze the other half for another day and another recipe.

We are going to make 12 sliders out of the 1 1/2 pounds. So start by scoring the ground beef to make 6 slices.

Slice it making 6 thick slices.

Slice each slice in half.

Take each half, and roll into a ball in your hands. These are about 2 oz each, (half of a quarter lb burger).

Take each ball, and press into flat, thin patties with the palm of your hand. These will really shrink while cooking, so you want to flatten them so they are spread out and thin. Salt and pepper them generously.

Slice your onion into very thin slices.

Take the slices and press one into each of the patties.

Place on a griddle or in a frying pan onion side up. We set ours at 300°

Fry until you begin to see some of the red juices begin to appear in the top of the patties. Flatten or mash them with your spatula.

Flip them over, and flatten/mash them one more time. Salt and pepper them again, and then add cheese (1/2 slice per patty) and continue cooking. This smells so good!

Once the cheese is melted, the patties should be cooked, but you can test one by cutting into it. They are so thin, they cook really quickly so you need to keep an eye on them. Place the cooked patties on the bottom portion of the buns.

If you want to add even more flavor to the buns, place the top portion of the buns on the griddle that you cooked on to absorb more of the juices and to cook for about a minute. Just a note about the buns, they make an actual “Slider” size. Many of your store bought brands now offer this. The ones I have are “Kroger Brand”, and it really makes the slider if you can get the actual “slider bun”.

Here they are, the star of the show! Now you can dress them up the way you like them!

We use tomato, pickle and lettuce, and of course ketchup, mustard, mayo, whatever you like!

Put the bun tops on and you are ready to roll!

There is nothing fancy about sliders… they are just a down home “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, so no need to be fancy. Paper plates are a perfect match for these little delights!

Serve ’em up with chips, potato salad, fruit, or whatever you like!

Hey… weren’t their 12 burgers to start? I only see 8 here… hmmm.

Cheeseburgers everywhere! Really, you start with 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef, and get 12 burgers! Talk about stretching your dollar! And they are fantastic!

I got a little fancy with the pickle!

Kasey says math isn’t her strong suit, but it looks like there are plenty to share!

“I thought that was my cheeseburger!”

Sliders always feel like a slice of Americana wrapped up like a party!

I had my first slider at a White Castle restaurant many years ago. They opened in 1921, owners Edgar Ingram and Walter Anderson came up with a strategy to send a message at how they valued cleanliness. They incorporated white throughout their restaurant. They even had a window you could watch as the meat was freshly ground in house. Because the burgers were tiny, you could eat several of them. They sold for a nickel a piece.

I also remember a cartoon character on Popeye way back in the day, who had a burger addiction. He would try and get people to pay for his burger today for which “he will gladly pay them on Tuesday”. I think his name was Wimpy.

Since then, there has been a slider explosion! Sliders are now found in all sorts of ingredients. Ham and cheese sliders, chicken sliders, corned beef sliders, we even made breakfast sliders at our house awhile back… I may feature that on the blog one day, awesome fast breakfast for on the go! But traditionally, the original sliders were mini hamburgers with onions somehow grilled into the meat, steamed buns, and pickles. Yum!

Here in the Detroit area, we have a fantastic place called “Bates Burgers” and they make amazing sliders! The restaurant is very basic, just four walls and window with a bar counter that lines the window you can sit on barstools. Troy and I use to drive over there after church, and it was a fun treat.

Fast forward to today, and this recipe. One of the loveliest things about this dish is that you are encouraging your guest to partake of more than one. Because just one slider, well it just doesn’t even feel right to say the words “just one slider”! How fun is that? To be expected to indulge in plenty of burgers! I mean isn’t there something outrageous but awesome about a big ole stack of burgers piled up on a platter?

I just love the concept of inviting your guest to indulge a little bit more. It’s telling them you want to spoil them a bit… or maybe a better word is “lavish”. My grandma use to do that. She would insist on giving you the very best she had even though she did not have much money. She would eat up the older food in the house during the week, but when guests came, she offered the best she had. And it truly pleased her to do this!

We can do the same, we can “lavish” them in all sorts of ways! We can simply turn our focus totally on making our guest know we are so thrilled they walked through our door, that we show that love through extravagant hospitality. We can start with a hug and a huge smile, and ushering them in, giving them the nicest chair to sit in.

Then we can cook up a big ole pile of sliders and urge them to sit back, relax and enjoy! Who wouldn’t just blossom under that kind of attention? Especially if they have been low on confidence and self esteem lately, and a visit to your house and your kitchen is just the thing to build them up and to believe in themselves a little bit more because they see the confidence you have in them! That is serving up something even more special than a plate of sliders! That encouragement may be the very thing that gives them the confidence to go back out there standing tall, chin up and shoulders back, because you believed in them! That is priceless!

I hope you have a fantastic week, my friend!

I’ll be back Friday for another Fashion Friday!

Love Always,

Amy

“True joy comes when you inspire, encourage, and guide someone else on a path that benefits him or her.”    ~Zig Ziglar