Sheet Pan Corned Beef Reuben Sliders Recipe

One of my favorite things about St. Patrick's Day is the excuse to buy myself a really good Reuben. Truthfully, I can have a corned beef Reuben anytime — even if I didn't live in Cleveland, which is home to some of the best corned beef sandwiches in the nation (I stand by that), I could find one at almost any deli or easily make one at home. Still, it never feels quite as good as it does on the yearly Irish-American holiday, when eating corned beef in any form feels like an homage to my ancestors' past. The only irony in this tradition is that corned beef Reubens aren't totally Irish — in fact, they're hardly Irish at all. The sandwich is said to have originated in 1914 in a Jewish deli as a fusion of German, Jewish, and Irish-American cuisine. It's a sandwich that tells a story and wears its culture on its sleeve, which gives me all the more reason to like it.

Because corned beef and Reuben sandwiches are often associated with St. Patrick's Day, it's a common sandwich to serve around the holiday. If you find yourself hosting green-and-gold parties or simply want a new sandwich to serve on game days, my sheet pan corned beef Reuben sliders are the perfect way to serve the sandwich to a crowd. Easy to make and ready in less than 20 minutes, the sliders are the perfect bite-sized taste of savory corned beef, melty Swiss, creamy dressing, and tangy sauerkraut, all baked between caraway-sprinkled pull-apart buns.

As with any pull apart slider recipe, these sliders begin with pull-apart rolls. The most common brand for this is King's Hawaiian, sold in colorful plastic packaging at most grocery stores. You can use the original Hawaiian sweet rolls, or use the savory butter rolls for something a little more savory. From there, you'll need thinly sliced corned beef from the deli, thinly sliced Swiss cheese, thousand island dressing, sauerkraut (which I recommend draining first), butter, and caraway seeds.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Slice the Hawaiian rolls in half to create one large bottom bun and one large top bun.

Place the bottom bun on a large sheet tray and pour the dressing over top. Smooth to coat.

Layer on the corned beef and Swiss cheese.

Transfer to the oven and bake until the cheese is melted, about 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and add sauerkraut.

Place the top bun on top and brush with butter.

Sprinkle with caraway seeds.

Return to the oven and bake for an additional 5 minutes, or until the buns are just warmed.

Pull the sliders apart to serve.

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Reuben sandwiches are often made with marbled rye bread, a type of bread made from two similar, but different, bread bases rolled together into one loaf. It's a sturdy, thick, dense bread with mild flavor, which makes it perfect for a sandwich as flavorful as a Reuben. It's also visually interesting, and makes the sandwich immediately recognizable. It's not, however, the only rye bread used for Reuben sandwiches — often, the sandwiches are made with Jewish seeded rye, which has caraway seeds buried throughout for extra flavor. These sliders replicate seeded rye with a sprinkling of caraway on top, but is there a way to use real rye bread instead?

The short answer is that you can use rye bread, but the recipe will not be nearly as effortless as it is with pull-apart rolls, which are sold in bite-sized sections ready for serving. With rye bread, you will need to slice the bread into slider-sized sections and build the sandwiches from there. You can seek out rye rolls (or make your own), which will get you closer to the real flavor of rye without needing to slice and manipulate a loaf. The other option, and a favorite swap of mine, is to use pretzel rolls, which add a salty flavor and chewy bite.

Baking the sliders open-faced is something I learned to do after many tests that resulted in sandwiches with unmelted cold cheesy centers. When assembled and baked all at once, the cheese remains unmelted between layers of bread and sauerkraut, which is much less appetizing than a sandwich with perfectly melted cheese. However, if you bake the sliders long enough to melt the cheese, the buns are far too crunchy to enjoy. To avoid this, assemble the sandwiches halfway, melt the cheese, and then continue with the recipe.

While you can always skip the second bake, I recommend popping the sandwiches back in the oven so that the top bun gets a little toasty and the flavorful layers meld together. This bake can be shorter: Since nothing needs to melt, the sliders need only to be baked until the top buns are warm, for about an additional 5 minutes.

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