The Bison Girl :: a lifestyle of good cooking, good eating & living well

Are you ready for another slider recipe? I sure am. I have been really into sliders lately, and sure been enjoying the heck out of them! This one (like all of them really), was crazy easy to put together, and the taste was just perfect! Really all there is to this recipe is making up your meatballs, toasting your slider buns with melted cheese and then putting together the simple sandwich! 1 lb. of Ground Bison should make about 8 meatballs. I used my pretty basic meatball recipe for these sliders, adding a little extra crushed red pepper for a bit more of a kick. If you like things with a little more heat, feel free to add even more! I cooked these meatballs in my Dutch Oven with my sauce, after browning them with some olive oil. 25 minutes on 375* oven will do the job. Letting the meatballs cook and simmer in the sauce really allows the meatballs to soak up the sauce which is key in a good meatball sub. Another important step in these little sliders is makin...

Making little bison sliders really allows you a chance to be creative with your burgers, as you only have to commit to a smaller portion size and not a whole giant burger! For this slider, I went towards some toppings that would add some spiciness to the slider, but without being too overpowering. To create the cream cheese topping spread, I finely chopped some jalapeño peppers and mixed them into softened cream cheese along with some minced garlic. Divide your meat into equal portions for the amount of sliders you want to serve. 1 lb. of ground bison should make about 6 sliders. Place sliders on a hot grill and grill for 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove from grill and serve on a toasted bun with a generous helping of cream cheese topping.  For a little extra crunch or kick, add some jalapeño slices on top as well.

This awesome slider was inspired by a Bison Burger I enjoyed a restaurant while visiting my sister in Des Moines, Iowa last year. I didn't get it quite right... part of that was their phenomenal brioche bun... but this one certainly isn't too shabby.  This slider is quite simple: a grilled bison burger slider, with melted cheese, a slice of poblano pepper and topped with pico de gallo. The one thing I would change about how I made this slider, is that I didn't cook the pepper slice at all. It probably would have been a little better if I had either grilled or sautéed the poblano pepper slice and made it more tender.  While you could use store bought pico de gallo, I recommend making it. It's quite simple, and then you can use fresh vegetables! All you need is: tomato, onion (red or yellow), cilantro, green onion, jalapeño peppers, a sprinkle of lime juice and a pinch of salt. Chop and mix all these ingredients together in a small dish and that's reall...

Bison Burgers. Ah... one of my favorite parts of summer.  I love cooking bison burgers. One of the reasons is because, there really isn't anywhere else around here to get a good bison burger other than my kitchen, but another is because it's so easy to cook anyway, and you can make a perfect burger just the way you like it! So here's my quick post on my favorite way to cook bison burgers to help you get started. Of course, the whole point of cooking for yourself is to make food the way you want it, so be creative and make the burger your own. Just use mine as a launch pad! As you can see here on the right, I like to start with big, meaty hand formed patties. If you're going for easiest way possible, my site does sell pre-formed bison burger patties that are wildly popular. I, however, prefer a larger, 1/2 lb. patty and so I prefer to form mine myself from the Ground Bison. I do not add anything to the meat before I form the patties. If you like, you can season ...

I've had this recipe stewing in my brain for quite awhile – just waiting for the right mood, the right time and the right combination of ingredients to pop into my mind. Finally, yesterday I decided to take the plunge and try it. I'm calling it the "Spicy Island Bison Burger" -- and it's quite a bit different from what I'm usually into making. For one, I don't generally go for pineapple. But for some reason, lately, I've really been feeling like grilled pineapple on a burger just might be a fun thing to try. So... here it comes: a Grilled Bison Burger with Grilled Pineapple and a jalapeño cream cheese "sauce".

I moved into my first apartment nearly 8 years ago now. Can that really be right?! The point of me bringing this up is to say that in 8 years of living in a home with my own kitchen, providing for myself, and cooking for myself, I can honestly say I never had the urge to make sloppy joes until just a couple months ago. I've always been of the mindset: "Why would you make a sloppy joe, when it's the same ingredients as a burger... and then you could just have a burger?!" But for some reason, just a few months ago, I really just wanted a sloppy joe. So I went against all my instincts and started browning up some bison burger instead of forming it into patties and throwing them on the grill. And to tell you the truth... I REALLY liked it! So, here I am yesterday, going back through old instagram pictures and came across my sloppy joe image and I thought: "Yup... I'm hungry for that again." So, I thawed out another pound of ground bison and got to work...

Today was one of those days where an idea just hit me. I've been spending the last couple of days really thinking and reflecting about new ideas for my job and how to finish out the year strong. Part of that includes coming up with new content and ideas to share with my followers and customers to keep them engaged and interested. But having been doing this for 4 years, sometimes I feel like I get into a rut, or the ideas are all dried up. So that led to a lot of bison meat reflecting the past two days. :)  Which luckily... inspired this creation that I'm sharing with you today: Bison Cheeseburger Crescent Rolls.

I LOVE Bison Burgers. Have I said that before? Probably. I'm usually pretty plain with my burgers. I put on a slice of cheese, add some ketchup... maybe onions, and I'm good to go. But there are so so so many other {delicious} ways to prepare burgers. This year on the blog, I am resolving to post at least one new Bison Burger recipe each month in 2015. I'm calling it "A Year of Burgers".   To kick off this series, we've got simple Blue Cheese Bison Burgers with buttered onions and a blue cheese dressing. See the delicious finished burgers below:

I LOVE bison burgers. I suppose that's probably a given, since you're on a website called "The Bison Girl." I also love sharing bison burgers with friends and family and introducing them to how awesome bison burgers can taste. My cousin recently moved to Lincoln and she still hadn't had a bison burger yet, so after she got settled in, I invited her over for one. Over the few years I've been associated with my company, I have come to cook many bison burgers, and, I think, I've gotten pretty good at it. As burgers have always been one of my favorite foods, and I realized some time ago that I always enjoyed them even more in steak houses or burger restaurants, I taught myself some time ago how to cook a restaurant quality burger. When it comes to bison burgers, my theory is that you're paying extra for this better quality meat, you should make a better quality burger. Don't skimp on any of the ingredients. You might think I have a lot of st...