Bacon Burger Sliders on Homemade Rolls

To make the burgers:
Into a large bowl, add ground beef, dried basil, black pepper and salt. Mix together until combined.

Divide the ground beef mixture into 8 equal pieces (roughly 2 ounces each) and form each into a patty. Just lightly press it together—don’t make it a tight patty. Place a thumb print in the center of each patty, put them onto a plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes while you make the rolls.

For the rolls:
Preheat oven to 425 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat; set aside.

In a large bowl add yeast and water and stir with wooden spoon. Let it sit for a minute.

After 1 minute add salt and sugar into the bowl with the yeast mixture and mix until combined. Add bread flour one cup at a time, mixing in between each cup. Add enough flour to where the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (I used 2 1/2 cups). Knead dough about 5-10 times until soft and there is no more flour remaining in the bowl.

Take off pieces of dough that are about 2 ounces in size and in the palm of your hand roll into a ball. Place dough balls onto baking sheet.

Place the egg in a bowl and whisk with a fork. Brush each piece of dough with the egg and sprinkle with salt.

Bake in the oven for 5 minutes then turn the broiler on and bake for 5 more minutes or until lightly golden. Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn. Remove pan from oven and set it on a rack

While rolls are cooling, grill your burgers. Heat your grill to medium heat and remove burgers from the fridge to come to room temperature.

Place the burgers on grill over medium heat and cook until done. This will take about 5 minutes per side. Then remove the burgers to a clean plate. Let the burgers rest for 5 minutes.

To serve, cut buns in half horizontally and place a patty on the bottom slice of bun and top each burger with a slice of bacon, broken in half. Add top bun over top of burger.

Roll recipe is from Sally’s Baking Addiction.