(More) Ultimate(est) Perfect Sliders Recipe

Our quest for slider excellence never ends.

Three sliders on serving plates.

Why It Works

  • By first caramelizing onions in the skillet and removing them, you build up a patina of sticky, browned onion juice that fuses to the beef when you smash the patties into it.
  • Placing the buns directly over the sliders as they finish cooking and covering the skillet with a clean kitchen towel warms and infuses them with onion-scented steam.

Don't you guys hate it when a recipe writer* tells you that they've created the "ultimate" recipe, only to come back a few months later to say, "Oh yeah, by ultimate, I meant almost ultimate—here's a newer, better, easier way to do it"?

*Alton Brown and Cook's Illustrated seem more guilty of this than most, though their recipes are by far the best.

Well, here's a disclaimer: That's exactly what I'm going to do today. Not because I was necessarily wrong in calling my previous recipe for the "ultimate" sliders, but because the study of burgers—like any of the other important hard sciences with which it stands shoulder to shoulder—is a constantly expanding field. We are perpetually gaining new insight and better techniques. So any time the word "ultimate" is used, it should be understood that it really means "ultimate, at least as far as the current knowledge of the field allows."

With that out of the way, I'd like to talk about towels, and why you should never be without one. As any fan of Douglas Adams knows, there are few things more useful in the galaxy. Of course, its most well-known function is intimidation (for any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with), but only slightly less well-known is this: creating perfect sliders.

Huh?

I would have had the same reaction a week ago: How can a towel help you cook burgers? Let's start with a recap of the definition of a perfect slider:

Weighing in at under two ounces, the diminutive sandwiches are made by slowly steam-griddling thin, all-beef patties on a bed of onions. The aromatic steam from the onions wafts through and around the beef and buns, which are placed directly on top of the patty as it cooks. When fully steamed through, the buns become mere wisps of moist pillowy bread—the physical manifestation of sweet, pungent onion vapor. Topped with melty American cheese and a couple slices of pickle, it's the cheeseburger in one of its purest, most noble forms and as a genre, is completely unimprovable.

Well, sometimes inspiration comes when you're least expecting it, as was the case when I found myself at the Michigan Avenue branch of Telway (map) along a strip that houses equal parts strip clubs and Lebanese restaurants. The Detroit mini-burger chain serves sliders that are relatively unexceptional save two features. The first is that they are extraordinarily cheap: $0.75 if you sit at the counter, or $2.25 for a sack of four if you get them to go, making them a steal even by Detroit standards. The second is their buns.

The buns are the softest, moistest, and most aromatically onion-infused that I've had anywhere.

While the beef itself is lacking in flavor and texture (in a generally inoffensive way), and the onions are not as sweetly caramelized as I like in a good slider, the buns are the softest, moistest, and most aromatically onion-infused that I've had anywhere.

As soon as I tasted them, I realized that here was a way to bring "ultimate" to a whole new level.

Getting Steamy

Collage of sliders and buns being griddled on the flattop at Telway Hamburgers.

Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

While I'm not one to throw around the word "sassy" lightly (or even at all) it's the only way to describe the, well, the sassy ladies who man the stainless steel counter and cast iron griddle at the Telway. Once you get past the amusing attitude though, you quickly discover that these women know how to sling meat and are more than happy to show you how it's done.

The burgers start off like any other classic slider. The grill-lady places a grid of small pucks of raw beef directly on a moderately hot and well-seasoned cast iron griddle before blanketing them with an insane amount of thinly sliced onions. Next she sprinkles on a healthy dose of seasoning from an unmarked can (when I pressed her to tell me what was in it, she replied "It's a secret," which I've discovered is international mom & pop restaurant code for "it's Lawry's.").

The burgers then get flipped so that they are resting on their onions, which slowly caramelize and steam as she places the buns on top. Now normally, the action stops right there, save for the last few moments when the burgers get cheesed and the assembled. But at the Telway, the key step comes next: A folded towel is placed directly over the steaming buns.

Like pockets or underwear, this is one of those ideas that when you look at it, it's so completely simple, obvious, and yet ingenious that you wonder why you've never seen it before, and why you haven't been using it for your entire life. As soon as I got home, I gave it a shot, updating the Telway cooking method with a few tweaks of my own.

First, although I've previously advocated using onion juice to maximize onion steam flavor in your burgers, my immediate thought was that with this new technique, perhaps the cumbersome step of juicing or grating onions might be rendered superfluous. Trying out a sample batch with nothing more than onions thinly sliced on a plastic mandoline and a modified version of my own blue label burger blend made with short rib instead of oxtail confirmed this: There was no shortage of onion vapor in those buns. The folded IKEA towel that I placed directly over the burgers as they cooked made sure of that.

Making the First Batch as Tasty as the Second

Of course, after cooking a single batch of sliders, you're left with a skillet full of beautifully browned sweet, savory, beefy onion bits, which make your second batch of sliders infinitely more flavorful than the first. So how does one get that sweet onion flavor from the very first batch? Simple: just brown a batch of onions in the skillet before laying down your meat.

By first caramelizing onions in the skillet and removing them, you build up a patina of sticky, browned onion juice that fuses itself to the beef when you smash the patties into it. As for the cooked onion you're left with, I just mix it together with the remaining raw onions that get smashed into the patties as they cook. In the end, it actually creates an even better onion flavor, as you get onions that hit the whole spectrum from deep, dark brown and completely melted, to only slightly wilted and still a bit crunchy.

One note: Do be aware that once you commit a towel to this process, there's no going back. It's going to be your onion-burger towel for life. This is a good thing to bear in mind before you decide to use the towel that you use to hide from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal,** or the towel your wife dries her face with.*** Onion breath is one thing to deal with—onion face is something entirely different.

**An animal so mind-bogglingly stupid that it thinks if you can't see it, it can't see you.

***Who I've discovered, looks and behaves much like a significantly more intelligent version of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal when she discovers her towel smells like onions.

December 2010

Recipe Details

(More) Ultimate(est) Perfect Sliders Recipe

Active 20 mins
Total 20 mins
Serves 8 sliders

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

  • 2 large onions, split in half from pole to pole and sliced thinly from pole to pole (about 2 cups)

  • Kosher salt (see notes)

  • 1 pound freshly ground beef, divided into eight 2-ounce portions

  • Freshly ground black pepper (see notes)

  • 8 small hamburger buns

  • 4 slices American cheese, split in half

  • 16 dill pickle slices

  • Mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise, as desired

Directions

  1. Heat vegetable oil in 10-inch cast iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add half of onions and pinch of salt and cook, stirring frequently, until light golden brown, about 3 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons water and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until onions are deep brown and thin layer of browned onion juice coats bottom of pan, about 4 minutes longer. Remove pan from heat and transfer onions to a small bowl. Add raw onions to cooked onions and toss thoroughly to combine.

    Caramelized onion residue encrusts a carbon steel skillet.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

  2. Return skillet to heat and place 4 beef balls evenly over surface. Using wide, flat spatula, smash balls into circles approximately 4 inches wide and 1/4-inch thick. Reduce heat to low. Season with salt and pepper (or seasoned salt, if desired, see notes). Divide half of onion mixture evenly on top of each patty and press into meat with bottom of spatula. Cook for 1 minute. Carefully flip patties so that onions are in contact with skillet.

    Thinly sliced onion covers the uncooked side of the slider patties.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

  3. Place bottom buns upside down on top of patties and top with top buns. Place clean folded kitchen towel on top of burgers so that all burgers are covered and towel drapes over edges of pan (be careful to keep pan away from direct flame). Continue to cook until burgers are cooked through and buns are fully softened with steam, about 2 minutes.

    A kitchen towel is draped over the sliders and buns.

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

  4. Remove towel. Remove top and bottom buns from burgers. Place 1/2 slice cheese on top of each patty and return top bun to burgers. Cover with kitchen towel and continue to cook until cheese is fully melted, about 1 minute longer. Meanwhile, place 2 pickle slices and condiments as desired on bottom bun. Lift towel. Transfer burgers, onions, cheese, and top buns to bottom buns. Serve and repeat steps 2 through 4 with remaining burgers.

Special Equipment

Clean kitchen towel

Notes

If you like seasoned salt (like Lawry's), you can replace the salt and pepper with it.

Read More

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
369 Calories
16g Fat
33g Carbs
23g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories 369
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 16g 20%
Saturated Fat 6g 28%
Cholesterol 58mg 19%
Sodium 693mg 30%
Total Carbohydrate 33g 12%
Dietary Fiber 2g 8%
Total Sugars 6g
Protein 23g
Vitamin C 5mg 23%
Calcium 254mg 20%
Iron 4mg 20%
Potassium 494mg 11%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)