Corned Beef Reuben Sliders
Oven-baked party sliders piled with tender corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island dressing on buttery rolls.
- 12 wholeHawaiian slider rolls
- 1 lbdeli corned beef(thinly sliced)
- 8 sliceSwiss cheese slices
- 1 cupsauerkraut(well-drained and patted dry)
- 0.33 cupThousand Island dressing
- 3 tbspunsalted butter(melted)
- 1 tspDijon mustard
- 0.5 tspcaraway seeds(optional, for topping)
Assemble sliders up to 4 hours ahead and refrigerate unbaked. Brush with butter mixture right before baking. Do not bake ahead — they are best served immediately from the oven.
- 1Preheat oven to 350°F. Without separating the rolls, slice the entire package horizontally through the middle so you have one large top and one large bottom.
- 2Place the bottom half of the rolls in a 9x13 baking dish. Spread Thousand Island dressing evenly over the cut surface.
- 3Layer corned beef evenly across the rolls. Top with drained sauerkraut and then Swiss cheese slices.
- 4Place the top half of the rolls over the filling. Mix melted butter and Dijon mustard, then brush evenly over the top of the rolls. Sprinkle with caraway seeds if using.
- 5Cover tightly with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 5 minutes until tops are golden and cheese is fully melted.
- 6Slice into individual sliders along the roll perforations and serve immediately.
Patting the sauerkraut very dry with paper towels before assembling is essential — excess moisture will make the rolls soggy. The covered baking period steams the filling while the final uncovered bake crisps the tops perfectly.
Corned beef became central to Irish-American cooking in the late 19th century as a direct result of the immigrant experience in New York City. In Ireland, pork — particularly salt-cured bacon — was the traditional everyday protein; beef was more expensive and less commonly eaten at home by the rural poor. When Irish immigrants arrived in New York's Lower East Side, they discovered that beef brisket — cured in a brine of large-grained "corns" of rock salt — was economically accessible through Jewish butcher shops in their neighborhoods, and it bore enough similarity in flavor and preparation to the salt-cured pork they knew from Ireland that it was adopted enthusiastically. Food historian Maureen Daly Goggin and others have documented this cultural substitution, which is why corned beef is American-Irish rather than Irish-Irish. The Reuben sandwich — corned beef on rye bread with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island or Russian dressing, grilled — is attributed in the most widely accepted account to Omaha, Nebraska grocer Reuben Kulakofsky, who made it for a poker game at the Blackstone Hotel around 1925. The slider format — small individual servings on soft rolls — was developed by the White Castle chain beginning in 1921 and later adopted by American casual dining culture.