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I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
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Saturday, May 08, 2010

White Castle Burgers - Clone Copycat Recipe

Earlier this year I blogged about White Castle® cheeseburgers affectionately known as Slyders™.  Searching through online sources I found a lot of clone recipes that actually came nowhere close to Slyders™.  Some even have the audacity to bake the burger to form patties!  Obviously they missed one of the fundamental rules of cloning a recipe and that it to clone the method as well.

White Castle clone burger patties
White Castle® burgers start out with thin frozen burger patties with a characteristic 5 hole pattern to help them cook quickly without flipping.  I started with lean ground beef (1) then rolled it with a rolling pin (2) between two pieces of wax paper.  I kept rolling until the ground beef was thin and squishing out the sides of the wax paper sheets.  The next step was trimming the ground beef into a rectangle (3) which actually sounds a lot easier than it is because raw ground beef simply does not cut easily.  I used a combination of a chef's knife and pizza cutter.  After the the rectangle was formed I used the pizza cutter to score the actual patties and a clean marker top to mark where the holes would go (4).

burger patty holes
One of the characteristics of White Castle® burgers is each frozen patty has 5 holes.  The holes serve the specific function of ensuring the patty cooks all the way through without flipping.  At the same time they let the steam from the onions waft through the cooking burger to permeate the bun.

Pictured are the burger patties after I removed the holes.  Each patty was about 4 - inch square.  Removing the holes involved a toothpick and a slight swirly motion that wasn't quite as bad as it sounds.  It was a bit tedious though.  The finished patties were then covered with wax paper and placed in the freeze to freeze solid before cooking. 

burgers on griddle
I used the griddle similar to the cooking surface used at White Castle®.  The frozen patties are  placed on a bed of onion (traditionally reconstituted dehydrated onions) then topped with the bottom of the bun.  When the burger is cooked it is removed, a slice of American cheese is added with optional but traditional pickle slice and the top bun is added at White Castle® so that's what we aimed to duplicate.

The patties look huge compared to the bottom of the buns but as you can seen with the middle burger at the top the patty shrinks considerably.   I made a fundamental error during the cooking process by using the onion flakes as is rather than reconstituting so that will be something to consider for the next attempt.  The result was still good just not exactly right so a bit of tweaking there and they will be about as close to the perfect clone for White Castle® burgers as you can get.

homemade sliders
I used store purchased dinner rolls for this clone recipe.  Each mini burger was topped with a half slice of American processed cheese. I omitted the traditional pickle slice because my husband does not like dill pickles so we never get them even when getting Slyders™ at White Castle®.

Overall I am extremely pleased with this first attempt at cloning Slyders™.  The only real tweaking that needs to be done is the onions and I already figured out what I did wrong.  Watch for the second attempt later this year with the onion problem corrected. 


13 food lovers commented:

Kim said...

I'm leery of putting th bun on the raw burger patty.

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Bizvertise, they are yummy!

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Kim and thanks for visiting. Surprisingly this is the way White Castle does it. The patties are actually frozen when you put the bun on. During the cooking process they cook from the grill up with the bun serving as a lid to keep the steam in so any meat juices are cooked before reaching the actual bun. HTH

Tia said...

Hi, I'm featuring this post on my Copycat Club blogalong. Thank you, please check it out if you have a chance.

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Tia, thank-you for featuring this post on your blog. I do have a copyright policy in place protected by the DMCA so please refer to that before posting or publishing any information including pictures from this blog without prior consent. I have received no requests from you regarding posting my copyright material. My contact information can be found under the contact information tab.

Anonymous said...

Um... Where can I find the recipe that you used? :)

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Anonymous :) The recipe including ingredients and method are outlined in the post.

Anonymous said...

Years ago I made these, however I mixed the beef with onion soup mix. Didn't have to worry about the onion thing then. Turned out pretty tasty!

Anonymous said...

Ohio
The recipe looks good except no cheese original white castles have no cheese and the pickle is IMO not optional ;)

Karen S said...

Nice job! I've made these in the past and here are my tips:

You already know about reconstituting the dried onions

For the bun I used a regular hot dog bun, trimmed the two rounded ends off leaving a long rectangle, then I cut the (closed) bun in half, forming two burger tops and bottoms. That texture is most like their buns.

amy said...

how did you add the onion to this recipe or how can i add them

Anonymous said...

Recipe please? The post only discusses the prep method.

nancyaa said...

I just followed a link from "All Free Copy Cat Recipes" and was not able to find the recipe either. So when "Anonymous" said she could not find the recipe, I am in the same boat. I did try to research your site but was unable to find the recipe. My grandson LOVES these burgers, so I am hoping that for those of us who "stumble upon" the recipe from other sites may not be able to find the recipe are being quite honest when we say, "we cannot find it" you may take the time to re-post it for us or tell us the date it was originally posted or post a link for us. Please know I am sending this with the utmost respect and mean NO ill will...because I really, really want the recipe :-)...have a wonderful day!! Nancy <3