Monthly Burger Series: Sheet Pan Burgers

It’s that time of year again…the chance to cheer on your favorite team in the 2019 college basketball tournament! Celebrate the festivities by hosting a fun basketball-themed party with your friends or classmates—complete with delicious dishes, party games, and plenty of fun activities!

Basketball Party Ideas

One great idea is to send out a tournament bracket to your guests as part of the invite. Have each person fill it out ahead of time, then keep track of the closest predictions and final scores as the games progress. (For official information on the college basketball tournaments, including a printable bracket, visit www.ncaa.com.)

Now, a few teams are already out of the running, so if you want to plan your party around a particular team, you might choose to host it sooner rather than later. Otherwise, wait until the championship round for the big get-together. Besides, who says you can’t wear your team’s colors regardless?

If your party guests will all be rooting for the same team (such as your alma mater), then go ahead and decorate your party with the team colors—using streamers, tablecloths, banners, etc. Or if there will be several different teams represented, consider decorating your affair with generic basketball décor and colors (orange and black), but encourage your guests to wear jerseys or colors supporting their favorite team! For more decoration and theme ideas, visit https://www.marthastewart.com/1513403/march-madness-basketball-party.

Depending on the length of your party, you may want to have some games and activities to pass the time between games (if watching multiple games back-to-back) or during breaks in the game. Besides playing actual basketball in the yard or driveway, try fun party games like basketball bingo or ping pong (see https://thecraftyblogstalker.com/march-madness-party-ideas for more ideas).

Lastly—and most importantly—you need enough food to feed your hungry guests! In addition to the some of the snack ideas found in the above resources, it’s a good idea to have a main feature that is easy to prepare. Enter: Sheet Pan Burgers on Martin’s 12-Sliced Potato Rolls.

Featured Recipe: Sheet Pan Burgers

Oven-baked sliders are great for large parties because you can prepare a large number of servings at one time and they typically require very little prep.

This recipe uses an ingenious technique: cooking twelve burgers at once using a baking sheet! This way, you don’t have to stand over the grill or stove cooking up individual burgers one-by-one. Instead, you can spend time with your guests and then bulk-prepare a dozen burgers in no time after the oven has done most of the work.

These quick and easy burger patties are baked over a bed of onions, which infuse the beef with delicious flavor, similar to what you would see at a classic burger joint. Topped with bacon, cheese, and your classic burger toppings, the finished burgers are then drizzled with a special sauce blend of Thousand Island, mayo, and hot sauce for that extra kick at the end.

Served on Martin’s 12-Sliced Potato Rolls, these sliders make the optimum size for party snacking—not too small and not too large. You can also double the recipe easily if you’re expecting a lot of (very hungry) guests!

Bonus tip: if you decide you want an even smaller burger, you can easily swap the slider-sized rolls for our Party or Dinner Potato Rolls. Follow the same directions; you just have to slice entire sheet of rolls in half before assembling.

View Full Recipe: https://potatorolls.com/recipes/sheet-pan-burgers