White Castle Slider Recipe, or Southern Krystal Burgers

Raise your hand if you’ve eaten either White Castle or Krystal sliders at 2 AM? Those little square burgers are almost a right of passage for late teens or early 20 somethings.

When you hear that calling and your mouth is watering but can’t get to either restaurant, we’ve developed a White Castle slider recipe that is very similar, not exact. Our homemade version is thicker than the originals, for both taste as well as manageability.

White Castle or Krystal?  Really depends on geography, a North vs South thing.  White Castle is in the North, mainly the Midwest and Krystal is in the south, or southeast to be exact.  Both restaurants serve inexpensive, small, very thin square hamburgers or sliders.

Are you getting the theme as to why I asked if you’ve ever eaten them at 2 AM. Teens and twenty somethings are looking for cheap, filling food that can be had after midnight. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in my 50s and I’ve had Krystal burgers, but it was at 11 PM, not 2 AM!  Age difference thing.

I had White Castle when I went to school at Miami of Ohio and now that I live in Atlanta, it’s Krystals.  I refer to the recipe as White Castle because those are the strongest memories for me, but both are very similar in looks and taste.

White Castle Burger Recipe For A Crowd

When developing this slider recipe I wanted to make it easy, fast and something that can be served to a crowd. I’m actually really proud of the tips and tricks that has brought this slider recipe to a few steps and very little clean up.

Perfect for a weeknight meal because they are ready in under 30 minutes. Throw a tray of fries in at the same time, toss a salad and serve dinner. Done!

There’s no making the patties and cooking them individually on the grill or stove top.  Just make one big slider in a baking tray and throw in the oven.

For a party you can make trays of the White Castle Slider Recipe ahead of time.  Keep in the refrigerator or freeze.  You can cook in the oven straight from the freezer!  How handy is that?

How To Make A White Castle Slider Recipe

Mince a small to medium onion, I like sweet like a Vidalia.  You want it minced fairly fine. 

On a baking tray mix three pounds ground beef with diced small onion and kosher salt and pepper. No need to over mix, just get the onion distributed evenly.  Then press down with your hands to make as level as possible, pushing the meat to the edge of the baking tray.

You’ll see in the picture below that I used parchment paper to keep the burgers from sticking to the tray. Now that I’ve made the White Castle slider recipe a few times, I’ve discovered that the bottom piece of parchment paper is not necessary.

Cover the meat with a piece of parchment paper and use another baking tray to gently press down on the mixture, this ensures an even layer all the way across making the meat cook evenly.

Remove the extra tray and parchment paper.  Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated 425 degree oven or until done to your liking.

If you want the sliders to have a char then turn up the heat to broil, place the tray on the top shelf and broil until you like the color. Personally, the sliders are between the bun and you really don’t see or taste the char.  Broilers for me are a dangerous thing because I tend to get distracted and then burn whatever is in the broiler. Plus White Castle steams, not chars.

While the White Castle slider recipe is cooking, split and place the buns place open face on the second tray.  Put a slice of American cheese on each bun.

Remove sliders from the oven and cut with a spatula, place on buns.  Hint: hold a bun over the tray to determine where to cut the sliders, you want them to fit the bun. Typically you’ll get 15 sliders.

Finish the sliders by placing the top bun on the burger, cover tray with foil and return to the oven for a minute or so to steam the buns and melt the cheese.

What Is In A White Castle Slider Recipe?

When I looked at their ingredients it was only ground beef, salt, pepper and rehydrated onion for the frozen version and steamed over onions for the restaurant version.

You need good ground beef, personally I always use grass fed beef from Long Meadow Farms, a sweet onion like Vidalia, good slider buns.  Optional is American cheese, mustard and pickle chips. Mustard is actually a Krystal thing, but I like pickles so they are in the recipe!

Well, OK, you can add any favorite toppings you like.  The mustard and pickle chips are more traditional for Krystal.

Mix 3 pounds ground beef. Yes, I said three pounds.  For those that think that’s too much, these White Castle sliders keep and are great the next day for lunch or a snack.  They also can be frozen for another night when you don’t want to cook. For my family of five (4 men, 1 woman) we devour almost the entire tray with just a few burgers left for a late night snack.

Still don’t want three pounds of sliders sitting around? You can cut the recipe by a third.  Use a smaller baking tray or just free form the patty. You may not end up with a perfectly square burger, but no one’s looking.

Why Do White Castle Burgers Have Holes In Them?

White Castle steams their burgers on a griddle. According to Thrilllist, who interviewed a White Castle executive, the holes were a suggestion from an employee many years ago.

The thought, and now proven theory, is that the burgers would cook faster, and that turned out to be true.  The holes also allow the onion flavor to infuse the burger as well as the buns.

At the restaurant they scatter the onions on the griddle, top with the burgers with holes in them to steam.  Then top with the bun, that’s why burger and bun have the onion flavor.

I’m here to tell you that as a humble home cook, it’s impossible to work with that thin of a burger, even if you try the freezer trick. That’s why I make a thicker slider, not traditional but much tastier!

Yes. It makes the ratio of burger to bun better.  Otherwise you feel like you are mainly eating bread.

How To Cook An Authentic White Castle Burger

If you are going for authenticity, then alter my recipe a bit. Use only 1 ½ pounds of ground beef and half the salt and pepper.

Scatter the minced onion over the bottom of the tray, place meat over that and poke holes in the burgers so that there will be about 5 holes per slider, one in each corner and one in the middle.

You can also mix the onions into the slider mix which makes things much easier,  but you wanted authenticity so I’m telling you how White Castle makes their burgers, and according to Thrilllist they are steamed over cut onions.

The holes help steam the burgers. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

It’s also a little harder to deal with such thin burgers. If that’s what you want then go for it.

Now you know why I devised a different way to cook the sliders and make them twice as thick as a White Castle, just think of it as a “double”.

Tips & Make Ahead Tricks For Making Our White Castle Slider Recipe

Before mixing the raw meat, put some kosher salt and ground black pepper onto a paper plate. You want to do this before handling the raw meat so that you don’t contaminate the salt or pepper mill. I use a salt pig so my hands go directly into the salt, thus mentioning this step.

Don’t forget the “extra tray” trick. By placing parchment paper over the raw beef and pushing down with the extra baking tray you get perfectly even burgers.  The parchment paper isn’t necessary but it keeps clean up and sticking to a minimum.

These White Castle and Krystal sliders are great for a weeknight or for a crowd.  Party goers love sliders that are easy and less messy to eat than a big burger. And for the host these are easy to make ahead.

You can mix and press the slider recipe into the baking trays up to two days ahead of time if you cover and refrigerate.  You can also freeze them, see in section below.

Use your discretion when adding the onion, a large one in my opinion would be too much, it might make the sliders fall apart. You want about a cup of minced onion.

How To Freeze Our White Castle Slider Recipe

Line the baking tray with freezer paper or aluminum foil, leaving “wings” at each end as handles so they are easy to remove from the tray.

Go ahead and mix and press the meat mixture into the baking trays. Pop in the freezer for at least an hour or until frozen through. Remove from freezer. Use the paper or foil handles and remove the slider brick from the tray. 

If you make smaller trays then they will probably go straight into a larger freezer bag.  If you used the half sheet pan then you’ll have to wrap in plastic wrap and then another layer of foil.  This method is best used within a month or you might get freezer burn on the burgers.

You can put the frozen sliders on a baking tray straight from freezer to oven, add 5 minutes or so to the cooking time.

What To Serve With Sliders

Classic would be French Fries.  You can buy frozen and pop them in the oven along with the sliders when they are cooking.  Many fries call for 450 and I call for 425 degrees for the sliders.  The fries will be fine at 425, you just might need to leave them in the oven for an extra 5 minutes to crisp them up.

Or you can make our Boardwalk Fries that adds some Old Bay for a seaside twist. Or bake frozen french fries and when they come out of the oven immediately sprinkle with kosher salt, seasoned salt or Old Bay.

How about lightening it up with some fresh fruit?  Or try one of our salad recipes like Caesar Salad, Olive Garden Salad or Caprese Salad.