Pizza Sliders
The Ultimate In Sunday Snacking
Pizza Sliders are the ultimate snacker’s dream. It’s savory crumbled Italian sausage, tangy marinara, creamy cheese, all baked up in a buttery, garlic buns.
Speaking from personal experience, serving these is the way to make your home a football watching paradise. You can prep all the ingredients ahead of time and assemble them when you’re ready to bake and serve.
Football Is For Food
To me, the only point of watching football is for the snacks. My Mister would disagree, but he would really think differently if I cut out the food aspect!
These Pizza Sliders are perfect for any large sporting events that come up in February. We as bloggers are not allowed to use the proper name, but I think you know what I mean: “The BIG Game.”
These will be very pleasing to your guests.
Perfect Side To Your Soups
When my Mom used to make soup, she would always serve something I liked on the side. My family made soup from bones and we had these back porches in Chicago that were our second fridge/freezer in the winter.
The soups were very homemade and full of good things. They were straight bone broth, although we didn’t know about this being something trendy back then. It is just what we ate.
The soup would come from the back porch and be like meat jello instead of broth. This grossed me out so much.
We know now that this was the good stuff and probably why I was never sick as a kid, but Mom would always make something I really liked as a side to the soup.
It would be nachos or a sandwich or something good to bribe me to eat the soup. These pizza sliders would be the perfect side to a healthy soup, in my mind LOL!
Some Soups To Choose From
I think these would be a great side with my Meatball Soup or my Beef Dumpling Soup. I was also thinking that my famous Pizza Salad and these Pizza Sliders would be a great combination.
Crumbling Is Good
The best kind of sausage to use for these sliders is this Italian sausage that is already out of the casings. If you cannot find the sausage like this, you can buy the links and remove the meat from the inside of the casings.
You do not want to bite into a slider and then have the casings. Trust me.
Marinara Versus Pizza Sauce
When you see the recipe card at the end of this post, you will see on the ingredients that I say to use marinara OR pizza sauce. I prefer a nice marinara because the pizza sauce seems to dry out too much when baked with these sliders.
I do not think there is enough “juice” from the already cooked sausage to keep the pizza sauce from being dried out. I love using the black label Aldi brand marinara.
I also like Rao’s, though you should use any sauce you like. If you were going to use pizza sauce, my family favorite is the brand Pastorelli.
I have always bought this in a can but I see now that it also comes in a jar.
If you buy the Pastorelli, my favorite snack as a kid was dipping string cheese into this sauce. I will still eat it as an adult.
It has such great flavor. I am not sponsored by Pastorelli, but I would not say no if they offered.
Grate Your Own Cheese
I find that this recipe works so much better if you grate your own mozzarella cheese instead of buying the pre-shredded one. I also recommend getting a higher fat mozzarella instead of a low fat one.
You will like the way this melts up all cheesy and delicious.
Pizza Sliders Recipe
These fun and delicious pizza bites are easy to prepare in advance so you'll be ready to go for game day.
Ingredients
- 1 package of 12 Hawaiian dinner rolls
- 1 1/2 cups of marinara or pizza sauce
- 3 cups of mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 lb of Italian sausage
- 4 tablespoons of butter
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 1 medium sized yellow onion, diced
- 2 teaspoons of garlic salt
- 2 teaspoon of garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons of dried parsley
- 2 teaspoons of dried oregano (or to taste)
Instructions
- Either buy your sausage already removed from the casings or remove from the casings. Add your olive oil to a skillet and add your onions and sauté until soft, then add your crumbled Italian sausage and cook until fully cooked. Break up into a fine crumble as you cook. Season with the garlic powder, oregano, a little bit of the garlic salt, and a little of the dried parsley.
- Open your package of rolls, and cut the lids off the buns. I try to cut them into one single sheet and remove the lid and then you have all the roll bases as one single piece.
- Put the roll bottom in a 9 x 12 casserole dish and spread the whole thing with the marinara or pizza sauce. I layer it on pretty thick. Make sure you get it to the edges.
- Add a sprinkle of the shredded mozzarella cheese. I like to shred the cheese myself. It melts better this way.
- Add the cooked Italian sausage and spread it evenly over the bun bottoms.
- Top with a little more marinara on top of the sausage, and then another layer of the cheese. Place the bun lids back on top.
- Melt your 4 tablespoons of butter and brush or pour the melted butter all over the top of the buns. Use a pastry brush to get the butter into the crevices and the sides.
- Sprinkle the whole top with garlic salt and the dried parsley.
- Cover with a single piece of foil and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 5 minutes more. *all ovens are different and bake differently, so keep and eye on these the first time you make them.
- Cut the buns into single sliders and serve.