Burger Mini-Panini Slider Bonanza!

If you come to dinner at my house, there’s a really good chance you’ll encounter a “dress-your-own” component in at least one of the courses.  The main reason is that I firmly believe that dinner guests are entitled to be served something they’d like to eat!  How many times have you been invited to someone’s house and, as appreciative as you are for the invitation, you just don’t dig lamb, or super-spicy food, or Paula Deen butterbombs?  I just can’t bear the thought of doing that to friends (although I know I probably have…sigh).  And while you can’t make all of the people happy all of the time, I think the dress-your-own approach, where you give folks the choice of how to dress up their food, at least raises the chance that they’ll like what they eat.

Even though it was just the two of us for the 4th of July this year (three, if you count the young lady having oatmeal and puréed pears), my husband and I had a blast dressing up our mini-panini hamburger sliders with some “new” cheeses, a variety of condiments and other fun toppings.  Why eat just one burger when you can take on a bunch of little ones?!?  I’m going to have to go back and write up the individual cheeses we used – Old Quebec Vintage Cheddar, Humboldt Fog and Point Reyes Original Blue – for the Cheese, Please! series, because they were all fantastic.  But for now, I’ll tell you a little more about the delicious combinations we came up with.

I kept the burger-and-bun parts simple, just like I like ‘em – just some salt, pepper and ground chuck and sweet Hawaiian dinner rolls. Rather than grill the burgers on the panini press (if you read my blog regularly, you know that I usually like to use the press for prep whenever possible), I decided to get into the 4th of July spirit and take the party outside to the Weber.  For a brief ten minutes I got to be “that house” in the neighborhood, pumping out the irresistible aroma of burgers grilling.

For the dress-your-own part I went shopping for a few “new” cheeses to try and a smattering of other toppings.  After sampling about 10 more cheeses at Venissimo (I’ve become picky all of a sudden!), I settled on three that promised to melt well and taste great with beef.  The sharp Old Quebec Vintage Cheddar was smooth and buttery and I knew I couldn’t go wrong with good cheddar on a burger.  I bought Humboldt Fog, a tangy goat cheese known for its “ribbon of edible vegetable ash along its center and a coating of ash under its exterior” that makes it look like a slice of cake, on the strong recommendation of the girl behind the counter.  And, finally, I picked the Point Reyes Original Blue for its bold-but-not-too-bold flavor and because I think every burger buffet needs a good blue.

We came up with four delicious combinations before we had to call it a day – sliders may be small, but all those bites can add up!!  Here they are:

• Humboldt Fog + caramelized red onions + arugula mayo = earthy, loved the sweet onions with the tangy goat cheese
• Old Quebec Vintage Cheddar + fresh basil + BBQ mayo = the smoky-sweet BBQ mayo was a terrific complement to the sharp cheddar and sweet Hawaiian roll; basil gave a nice herb-y punch
• Point Reyes Original Blue + bacon + sliced avocado = the sweet roll brought out the sweetness in the bacon; the smoky flavor was really nice vis à vis the tangy blue cheese
• Humboldt Fog + bacon = the goat cheese really “wanted” the bacon!

Now, we could have just made these as “regular” burgers.  But I’ll tell you that finishing these sliders, with their sweet Hawaiian rolls, on the panini press resulted in this wonderful, almost-caramelized outer crust that made them really difficult to put down.  And so we didn’t!

Burger Mini-Panini Sliders

Serves as many folks as you like!  Use your own favorite burger recipe and have fun mixing and matching with these cheeses, condiments and toppings.

Sweet Hawaiian dinner rolls
Hamburgers, grilled to taste, 3″ diameter
Cheeses (see below)
Condiments (see below)
Toppings (see below)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the panini grill to medium heat (300 degrees).

Assemble sliders with your choice of cheeses, condiments and toppings.  Grill sliders for about 5 minutes until the cheese melts.  NOTE: Different cheeses melt at different rates, so you may need to shorten or lengthen the grilling time for each slider.

CHEESES (these can usually be found in the specialty cheese section of your grocery store or your local cheese shop):

Humboldt Fog
Old Quebec Vintage Cheddar
Point Reyes Original Blue

CONDIMENTS:

Arugula Mayo: In a food processor, blend a handful of arugula with 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
BBQ Mayo: In a small bowl, combine equal parts barbecue sauce and mayonnaise

TOPPINGS:

Bacon
Caramelized Red Onions - Slice one red onion into thin rings.  Season with salt and pepper and sauté over medium heat in 1 tablespoon of olive oil for 15-20 minutes until caramelized.
Avocado, sliced
Fresh basil

>Want more panini recipes? Check out the Recipe Index for a list of all recipes on Panini Happy.

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Tagged as: arugula, bacon, barbecue, burgers, caramelized onions, humboldt fog, Old Quebec Vintage Cheddar, Point Reyes Original Blue, Sweet Hawaiian rolls