Reuben Sliders

How I celebrated St Patrick’s Day this year, part 1. This is my choice on how to have corned beef this way in an untraditional way, among the many ideas I mentioned in my last Green Food for St Patrick’s Day plus variations on a Reuben post

Reuben Sliders

Serves 4-12, since these make 12 little rolls. I like these better than reuben sandwiches because although it is messy, they are small and mini so thus adorable!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of homemade Russian Dressing: you can make your own with mayo, sour cream, ketchup, and hot sauce, but I like the combination of the tang of Thousand Island Dressing along with the heat of Russian Dressing, so I like to use regular 1000 Island dressing and add hot sauce and horseradish to taste so I can get the best of both worlds. Russian Dressing is the traditional condiment though. You can do this to taste depending on how much bite you want.
  
• 1 package party rolls or slider buns – I used a package of 12 Hawaiian Rolls
  
• 1 pound of Shredded corned beef or pastrami – I used half of each. I bought slices from my grocery deli (these are Boar’s Head) and shredded them myself
  
• 8-12 slices Swiss cheese depending on size of your slices and how cheesy you want it. If you use aged cheese it has more flavor so you can use less of it, and/or use very thin sliced swiss
• Sauerkraut (optional). I like to saute my sauerkraut in a tablespoon of butter so it browns a bit rather than just on its own. Another option is to use cole slaw, which I suppose makes this a “Rachel” instead of a “Reuben”
• 1/4 cup of melted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a knife, cut the rolls in half horizontally so that all the tops are attached and are in one piece and all the bottoms are still attached and in one piece as well. Spray a pan with non-stick or with a bit of olive oil or butter, and then put the bottom piece of your rolls into the pan.
2. Spread both sides of bread with the Russian Dressing so that there will be some sauce on the inside of the bottom and top.
   
3. Layer on top of the sauce layer at the bottom of the sliders the shredded corned beef, then the Swiss cheese, and repeat the layers. When I made mine, I made 4 rolls with the corned beef and 4 rolls with the pastrami. You can tell the pastrami apart from the peppered edges of the meat (it’s the one on the right side).
   
4. I also used sauerkraut, but I don’t like too much of it so I put it as the 2nd to last layer, and then put a piece of cheese on top to melt on top of it.
   
5. Put the top of the rolls back on. And now spread the thin layer of melted butter over all the tops of the rolls. It looks nice and shiny on both the corned beef half and the pastrami half.
   
6. Wrap tightly in  tinfoil, and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Remove and let the sliders cool slightly before cutting.
   

These are great for little snacks at a get together because of their size. SThey are so quick to make and warm up to melty meaty goodness too.

Are you making anything special for St Patrick’s day? Do you like pastrami or corned beef, which do you like better (I confess to preferring pastrami).