In this video, learn how to make Chef John's Cheese Puff Sliders—a fun twist on classic sliders! These bite-sized burgers feature thick beef patties, melted cheese, and a touch of tangy sauce, all sandwiched between golden, flaky puff pastry buns. Perfect for parties, game days, or anytime you need an easy appetizer.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with Cheese Puff Sliders!
00:08That's right!
00:09I'm going to show you how to make some incredible French-style cheese puffs, which we will then
00:13use to make some of the most delicious, most interesting, fun-sized cheeseburgers you've
00:17ever had.
00:18And to get started, before we slider, we have to cheese puff.
00:23So what we'll do is add some sliced butter to a saucepan, along with a nice big pinch
00:27of salt, plus some cold, fresh water, and we'll set our heat to medium-high, and we'll
00:32wait for our butter to melt, and for our water to start to simmer, which ideally happens
00:36at the exact same time, which, by the way, is why we have to slice the butter.
00:40All right, if you toss a whole stick in, your water will be simmering and evaporating before
00:45the butter's melted, and it may throw off your proportions, and then as soon as both
00:50those things have happened, we'll reduce our heat to medium, and we will toss in our flour
00:55all at once, at which point we'll take a wooden spoon, and we will cook this, stirring, until
00:59we've formed a nice, smooth, pasty dough.
01:01And by the way, it's not going to start out smooth.
01:04Oh yeah, we're going to have some lumps at the beginning, which really freaks a lot of
01:08people out.
01:09But don't worry, take a deep breath, and keep stirring, and within a minute or two, your
01:14mixture should look like this.
01:15And you will notice a film forming on the bottom of the pan, and at this point, a lot
01:20of recipes tell you to stop, and move on to the next step.
01:23But I do not.
01:25I want us to continue cooking for at least another minute, just to cook that flour a
01:29little more, and kind of dry out the mixture just a touch.
01:33And while this is happening, we're doing our best to scrape that film off the bottom of
01:36the pan with the spoon, which may or may not come off easily for you.
01:40But again, don't worry, it's all going to be fine, since after doing that for a minute,
01:44we will turn off the heat, and we will continue to stir, scraping the bottom of the pan.
01:49And what's going to happen with the heat off?
01:51The moisture from our dough is going to sort of deglaze the bottom, and if everything goes
01:55according to plan, about a minute later, you may have, you could have, you should have
02:00a fairly clean pan.
02:02And if it's not perfect, that's fine.
02:04We will just move on to the next step anyway, which is transferring this into a bowl, at
02:09which point we'll season it with a few shakes of cayenne, plus a nice big pinch of freshly
02:13ground black pepper.
02:15And then what we'll do is transfer in one of our two eggs, and we will take our spoon,
02:19and we will start mixing.
02:21And we will keep mixing, until that goes from ugly and separated, to slightly less ugly,
02:26and a little bit sticky.
02:28And this is the step that really throws people off if they've never made this before, because
02:32it does appear that something's gone horribly wrong, and people will stop and start over.
02:38But you do not need to, just keep stirring, and eventually that egg will mix in, and things
02:42will start to come together.
02:44And once this mixture does start looking doughy and sticky again, we will stop, and do the
02:49exact same thing with the second egg, which, since we already have one mixed in, is going
02:53to go a little easier than the first one.
02:55And then once our eggs have been fully incorporated, we will clean off our wooden spoon with a
02:59spatula, as well as clean up the sides of the bowl.
03:03And since I've done like a thousand of these, I can tell just by looking at it that the
03:06dough is perfect.
03:08But one rule of thumb some people like to use, is if we pull our spatula out, the dough
03:12on the end sort of forms a pointy tip, or like a triangle, or if it just sticks on like
03:17a big clump, it's probably too thick.
03:19And if it simply drips off, it's too thin.
03:22But if we get some pointy dough hanging off the end, that's supposed to indicate our dough
03:26is good.
03:27And once it is, we can finish this off by folding in our grated cheese.
03:31And I like to use a combination of Gruyere cheese and sharp cheddar cheese.
03:36But hey, you get to use anything you want.
03:38I mean, you are after all the Joe DiMaggio, of which Formaggio.
03:43But no matter which you use, trust me, these are going to be a big hit.
03:46And even if you don't make sliders, they still would make an amazing appetizer.
03:51But anyway, once our cheese is mixed in, we'll grab a scooper, and we will place 12 equal
03:55portions on a Silpat line baking sheet.
03:58And you know I love these little scoopers for portioning.
04:01Especially for something like this, since it's going to give us a nice round slider
04:05bun shape to start with.
04:08But having said that, feel free to use a couple spoons to do the same thing.
04:12And once we've done that 12th one, if we have a little bit of dough left over, we'll
04:16just add it on to the ones that look a little bit small, which sometimes takes you a few
04:20seconds to figure out.
04:22And by the way, I should not have dough stuck to my fingers, since what you want to do is
04:26have some water nearby.
04:27And if you dip your fingers in while you're fine tuning these, and pushing the dough around,
04:31and making things a little neater, that dough will not stick if you have some moisture on
04:35your skin.
04:37But as you're about to see, we're actually going to cover these with cheese, so do not
04:40stress too much about getting them perfect.
04:43And then speaking of cheese, what I like to do, if you have it, is grab a ring cutter
04:47that's just a little larger than our dough, and I like to place that over before we top
04:53that with a nice rounded tablespoon of grated cheese.
04:56Which does a great job of concentrating it on top, so that we're not spending too much
05:00time picking it off the pan, and placing it on shred by shred.
05:04But in any event, once those are topped, and we've pushed any rogue shreds of cheese up
05:08against the base of the dough, what we'll do is transfer this into the center of a 450
05:13degree oven.
05:15And then immediately, without forgetting, we will turn our heat down to 375, and we'll
05:20let these cook for about 35 minutes, until they are perfectly puffed, and beautifully
05:24golden brown, and they hopefully look like this.
05:28Oh yeah, that is exactly what we're going for.
05:32And then what we'll do is let those rest on the pan for just 3 or 4 minutes, at which
05:35point we'll pick them up and place them on a cooling rack.
05:38And as you can see, the bottom should be beautifully browned as well.
05:42And we also have a nice crispy cheese skirt around the base, which is going to add some
05:45textural excitement to your slider.
05:48Unless you snap it off and eat it while these are cooling, like I usually do.
05:52And in real life, just let all these cool before you start making sliders.
05:56But I'm going to grab one while they're still warm, so I can tear it open, so you can hear
06:00the combination of that crispy outside, and that soft, moist, hollow inside.
06:11And not to brag, but that was pretty much a perfect cheese puff, or as my French friends
06:15would call it, a gorgere.
06:17And if you did want to serve these as is, and you want a real gorgere, you're going
06:21to want to add some freshly picked thyme leaves to the dough, since along with the cheese,
06:26the thyme and the pepper are the classic flavorings.
06:29But anyway, that was amazing, and it was hard to let the rest cool without eating them,
06:33but I did.
06:34And while those are cooling, we can move on to pan fry our beef, which I'm going to do
06:38over medium-high heat.
06:40And by the way, when we cook burgers, especially ones this small, once you place them in, do
06:44not try to move them until you have a nice crust formed.
06:47But I've always been terrible at following my own advice, so I couldn't resist pushing
06:51that one over a little bit, since it was bugging me it was so close to the edge.
06:56But anyway, I let those sear for a few minutes, until I had a nice crust formed, at which
07:00point I flipped them over, so I could give the other side a couple minutes as well.
07:05And yes, in case you're wondering, I absolutely season these on both sides with salt and pepper.
07:09OK, it's shocking how many people do not season the meat when they make a burger at home,
07:13and then they complain it's not as good as the ones you get out.
07:16Well that's why.
07:17I mean, come on, season your meat.
07:19And of course, with patties this small, it's going to be tough to catch it at a perfect
07:23medium-rare.
07:24So let's not try.
07:25And basically, as soon as those spring back to the touch, and we can see that beef juice
07:29starting to leak out the top and sides, we are done.
07:32And when that happens, we'll remove those to a plate to rest for a few minutes, while
07:36we dress our cheese puffs.
07:38So what we'll do is take a cheese puff, and cut it just like a hamburger bun.
07:42And we will open it up to expose that gorgeous hollow inside.
07:46And then you go ahead and dress these with whatever you want, but I'm going to use a
07:50classic traditional secret sauce, which is two parts mayonnaise, one part mustard, and
07:54one part ketchup.
07:56And that's it.
07:57We will place our hopefully juicy burger inside.
08:00And then I finished mine very, very simply, with a slice of bread and butter pickle, as
08:04well as a little bit of sliced cherry tomato, because there's no good real tomatoes available
08:09this time of year.
08:10And then I closed that up and went in for the official bite, which really was absolutely
08:15incredible.
08:16Alright, even though we didn't put any cheese on the meat, our puff is very cheesy, so it
08:21kind of works together the same way.
08:23Except I think in probably a more delicious and interesting way.
08:27And while this was tremendous, I did think the burger was a little too small.
08:31Plus, as you know, I have to take some contractually obligated pictures.
08:35So I did end up making a few more, using two ounces of meat, plus I added a little bit
08:40of lettuce on top, just to make the pictures a little more colorful.
08:44And after taking a few of those, I transferred them onto a plate, next to of course some
08:48potato chips.
08:49And I proceeded to enjoy an even more perfect cheese puff slider.
08:53So to summarize, this experiment using a cheese puff, instead of a burger bun, was a total
08:59success.
09:00Sorry, dinner rolls, but you had a good run.
09:03And if you're not into pan-fried beef, you can take this same idea and fill these with
09:08all kinds of things.
09:09But they truly were fantastic as shown, which is why I really do hope you give these a try
09:15soon.
09:16So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
09:20more info as usual.
09:21And as always, enjoy!