Grilling Sliders For A Crowd Is Easy If You Have A Sheet Pan Handy

Sometimes it feels like the heyday of sliders is behind us, but there's always something appealing about eating several tiny burgers instead of one single one. They work especially well at a barbecue, where it's very easy to lose track of how many finger foods you've popped into your mouth. Maybe the reason some grillmasters avoid sliders is because they can seem like extra effort: more buns, and more work assembling the ground beef into multiple tiny patties instead of one big patty. However, if you have a baking sheet pan handy, you can sidestep that trouble entirely.

Rather than assembling tons and tons of tiny burgers individually, spread the ground beef evenly across a sheet pan, and then cut them within the pan so you can pull out and grill slider-sized squares as you need them. Alternately, grill them before you cut them: Once you've filled the sheet pan with ground beef, turn the sheet pan upside down and place the whole flat layer of burger on the grill. Once it's cooked and seasoned, cut it up into slider-sized patties and place them onto slider-sized buns. In any case, arranging and cutting up the beef in the pan as if you're baking and cutting brownies will save you a lot of trouble; we understand that "ground beef brownie" is an odd image, but it makes for good burgers.

How many sliders can you make from a single sheet pan full of ground beef? In general, with a standard 13 by 9-inch sheet pan, you have enough room to fit about two pounds of ground beef, which will net you about 12 sliders. With a bigger sheet pan, you can expect about 15 sliders, but keep in mind that they'll likely come out square-shaped unless you pull them out individually to shape them before grilling. To help you cut the beef into correctly sized patties, you can place the tiny slider buns onto the grilled beef first before you cut it up; the little bread rolls should help you visualize how to divide the beef. Or instead of buns, use deviled eggs for an unexpected slider bun swap, or tater tot rounds for adorable slider appetizers.

Does this baking pan trick work for regular-sized cheeseburgers? Sheet pan burgers are absolutely a doable way to grill up several patties at once. You'll need a larger sheet pan to make more burgers, of course, but you can still expect to get a few burgers grilling at once. With this method, feel free to slide some cheese between two smaller layers of ground beef as you arrange it on the pan. If this sheet pan dinner is cooking unevenly, you can fix it by cutting up the beef before you cook (if you weren't already doing so).