Game Day BBQ Pulled Pork Sliders

Looking for a savory pull apart sliders recipe you can make for this year’s Super Bowl party? You’ll want to try these game day BBQ pulled pork sliders, an easy and flavorful recipe that will satisfy any hungry crowd.

These sliders are seriously delicious. Any sliders on Hawaiian rolls are pretty much irresistible – but when you load them up with our slow cooker pulled pork, caramelized onions, creamy garlic aioli, and gooey cheddar cheese, they’re simply impossible to stop eating! With just a little bit of prep work in the days leading up to the big game, you can make a big batch of these savory sliders for all to enjoy.

BBQ Pulled Pork Sliders Ingredients

These sweet and savory game day sliders are made with a saucy barbecue pulled pork and caramelized onion mixture, served on toasted Hawaiian rolls with melted cheddar cheese and garlic aioli. Mmm.

Here’s everything you’ll need to make our BBQ pulled pork sliders recipe:

• King’s Hawaiian Rolls
• Sliced cheddar cheese
• Caramelized onions
• Pulled pork
• Barbecue sauce
• Garlic aioli

You can use any kind of cheddar cheese you like on these sliders – mild, sharp, extra sharp, you name it. All types of cheddar taste delicious with pulled pork.

We definitely recommend making fresh caramelized onions for these sliders – that way, all the butter and oil and flavors you’re left with in the pan after caramelizing the onions get infused into the pulled pork when you heat it up. To prepare them fresh, you’ll need a yellow onion, some vegetable oil and butter, plus salt and sugar. It’s pretty easy but it does take some time, so prepare accordingly! Alternatively, you can make the caramelized onions ahead of time and simply reheat them for this recipe.

What we definitely don’t recommend is making the pulled pork fresh for these sliders, because that requires way too much time and effort. What we love to do is buy pork when it’s on sale at the grocery store, cook it overnight in our slow cooker, pull it in the morning and store it in the fridge or freezer until we need it for a recipe. However – if you are making these game day sliders for a huge crowd and need a few pounds of pork – we do recommend making our slow cooker pulled pork a day or two ahead of the game and using it all for this recipe!

Finally, a store-bought barbecue sauce and garlic aioli work just fine for these easy sliders. We love Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce and Stonewall Kitchen’s roasted garlic aioli, but feel free to use any brand.

How To Make Game Day BBQ Pulled Pork Sliders

Once you have your ingredients, including the prepared pulled pork, you can easily make these game day barbecue sliders in just a few steps. Here’s how:

1. If you’re making fresh caramelized onions, start there. Caramelize the onions in a large frying pan until they’re a deep brown (check out our tips on how to caramelize onions here if you’re new to this!).
2. Then, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and prep the slider rolls. Slice the Hawaiian rolls in half horizontally, leaving the rolls attached to one another. Separate the top half from the bottom half, placing both halves cut side up on a large baking sheet.
3. Next, lay the cheese slices over the top half of the rolls in an even layer. You should be able to use about 4 standard slices to cover 12 Hawaiian rolls.
4. Then, bake the rolls until they’re lightly toasted and the cheese is melty, about 5 minutes.
5. While the rolls are in the oven, add the pulled pork to the frying pan with the onions. Cook over medium-low heat until the pork is warmed through and lightly crisped, about 5 minutes. Then, remove from heat and stir in the barbecue sauce.
6. Finally, spread a thin layer of garlic aioli over the bottom half of the toasted rolls. Top with the pulled pork and onion mixture, then close the sliders and serve hot.

If you’re using premade caramelized onions from the fridge, you’ll want to reheat them in a frying pan over medium-low heat until they’re warm and smell sweet. This will only take a few minutes, so you can easily put together these game day sliders in about 15 minutes by prepping the onions a few days earlier.

BBQ Pulled Pork Sliders: Serving Suggestions

What goes well with BBQ pulled pork sliders on game day? The answer is simple: any savory snack you’re already planning on serving for the big game!

Here are just a few of our favorite sides and accompaniments for these sweet and savory sliders on game day:

• Bacon cheese loaded tater tots
• Sweet potato waffle fries
• Beer battered onion rings
• Smashed potatoes
• Buffalo wings
• Agave chili lime chicken wings
• Buffalo chicken dip

You can also serve them as part of a slider spread, offering a variety of sliders for your game day guests to choose from! Try our Italian meatball sliders, buffalo chicken sliders, and vegetarian black bean southwest sliders – or check out our other slider recipes here for more ideas.

Game Day BBQ Pulled Pork Sliders: FAQs

If you’re planning your Super Bowl game day menu, you might be wondering how many sliders you need to make, or how to know what size pork shoulder to buy. Here are our answers to some commonly asked questions to help you plan ahead.

How many sliders should I plan on making? This all depends on how many other snacks you’re planning to serve with the sliders. If the sliders are going to be served as a meal, plan on 3 to 5 sliders per person, plus small sides like french fries or tater tots. But if you’re going to serve plenty of other game day appetizers, you can safely plan for about 2 sliders per person.

How many sliders does a pound of pulled pork make? One pound of pulled pork will make 24 sliders with this recipe.

How do I know what size pork shoulder to buy? The amount of pulled pork you’ll get from a pork shoulder depends on how much fat is on the cut of pork you chose, and if it’s on the bone or boneless. We typically buy a 5 pound boneless pork shoulder and get about 3.5 to 4 pounds of pulled pork out of it.

Some quick math to help you out: If you want to make enough sliders for 20 people, planning on about 2 sliders per person, you’ll need 48 slider rolls and 2 pounds of pulled pork, so a 3.5 to 4 pound boneless pork shoulder should do.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

These savory barbecue pulled pork sliders are the perfect shareable appetizer for your game day party! They’re so easy to make for a crowd with a little bit of prep work, and the flavor is to die for. Serve them with other football Sunday snacks like wings, buffalo chicken dip, and a veggie platter for a game day spread worthy of its own touchdown dance.

Try our game day BBQ pulled pork sliders recipe for Super Bowl Sunday and don’t forget to rate, comment, and share below if you love it!