Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf Sliders

This month for the Secret Recipe Club I was assigned the blog I was Born to Cook - written by Melissa.  I became familiar with Melissa's blog through the SRC, so its a fairly new blog to me.  Melissa is of Italian Heritage while her husband's family is Greek.  The best of both worlds in my opinion!  Therefore, she has a lot of pasta on her blog - which of course I LOVE.  But, wouldn't you know it, I went with something that had no pasta in it at all.

Grumpy would love Melissa's kitchen.  She has a lot of beef on her table - much more than I put on ours!  So, because he loves beef and he loves meatloaf with pickles in it, when I saw this recipe she had on her blog for Cheeseburger Meatloaf Muffins, I knew I would be using that recipe for my SRC post.  Of course, my mind always takes recipes I see in different directions a lot of the time, just like it does many other foodies out there.  I decided that I was going to make the meatloaf mixture without the cheese in it and turn it into slider patties topped with bacon and cheese.

Now that I've made this recipe I think next time I would put some of the cheese in the recipe along with pieces of crumbled up bacon and top it with more cheese and bacon.  How yum would that be; not to mention perfect since they already have the ketchup, mustard (my addition) and pickles in the mixture?  Sometimes I could kick myself for not thinking of something until after the fact.  Guess it just means I'll just have to make them again! 

Cheeseburger Meatloaf Sliders
adapted from I was Born to Cook

printable recipe

Cooking spray
1 onion, diced
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon mustard
1/2 cup Italian Flavored bread crumbs
1 egg
2 heaping tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
Cheese slices for topping (optional)
Cooked bacon slices for topping (optional)

In a skillet  Heat oil in a skillet and saute onion until softened.

In a large bowl, combine ketchup, mustard, bread crumbs, egg and pickle relish. Mix in onion. Add beef and  mix all together.  I find that my ice cream scoop makes the perfect sized ball to shape into a slider.  I have a slider frying pan where you drop the ball into the cup and put the lid on - no shaping required because the pan does the work.  Both sides have grill marks on them but you don't have to flip the burgers!  No worry though, you can cook these on your stove top right in the frying pan too.  Just make sure to spray whatever pan you do use with cooking spray.

Toast slider buns and assemble burger topping with cheese and bacon.  Grumpy likes to put mayo and ketchup on his burger too, me I am a ketchup only girl!

Thank you Melissa for writing such a great blog filled with all kinds of recipes!

To check out all the other SRC submissions for this month, check out the links below!