Great meal ideas, like these Santa Fe Burger Sliders, can come from just about any of the major magazines for “home managers”. I am talking about Woman’s Day, Better Homes & Gardens, and Family Circle. I think this particular recipe came from Family Circle, but don’t quote me on that. I have down-sized the original recipe to the slider format, because I just thought that would be fun.
I have been making the Santa Fe Burgers off-and-on for years, so I already knew they were a family favorite and that the size wouldn’t matter. With one of my daughters and her family living with us temporarily, we are sharing the cooking and I have been resurrecting quite a few of my old favorites.
The ingredients for the sliders are pretty simple. I usually make my own fresh salsa and, coincidentally, there is usually a partial bag of the bits & pieces of tortilla chips. You know what I’m talkin’ about, right? Perfect for crushing and adding to recipes and this one calls for that.
For the buns, I opted for Sara Lee Artesano square dinner rolls because their bread brand is so good and I didn’t really see any of the mini-buns on the shelf. So guess what else I did? I made square burgers. Look out Krystal Burger! And the cool thing about doing that was that I just put the big ol’ pile of the burger mixture on a piece of waxed paper, topped it with another, and used a rolling pin to roll it out into a rectangle, about 1/2-inch or so thick. Then, I took my food chopper–with the wooden handle and big “blade”–and cut my squares with that. I got about 2 dozen or so out of almost 2 lbs. of ground beef (I doubled my recipe because I needed to use up 2/3 of a 3-lb. package that I had previously thawed out). That was amazingly quick and simple and they fit so well on the rolls.
You could certainly cook these any way you please, but I did mine on my George Foreman grill, half batch at a time for 4 minutes. Since it cooks both sides at once, this was a no-brainer, and when you are trying to get dinner on the table quickly, why not?
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Santa Fe Burger Sliders
Description
A great way to serve hamburgers with a Southwestern flair and in a fun size.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1 cup shredded Mexican Cheese Blend, divided
- 1/2 cup salsa, divided
- 1/4 cup crushed tortilla chips
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin or chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoons garlic salt
- 1 package dinner rolls
- Lettuce
- Roma tomato slices
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine ground beef, 3/4 cup of cheese, 1/4 cup salsa, tortilla chips, green onions, cumin and garlic salt. Mix lightly, until well combined. Shape into patties–square or round–about 1/2 inch thick.
- Grill patties on lightly oiled grill until internal temperature reaches 160° F.
- Place burgers on rolls and top with remaining salsa and cheese. Serve with lettuce and tomato.
