Tag: White Castle

What are they?

They are the love children from a White Castle cheeseburger slider and a pizza roll. And there are lots of kids in this 40-ounce party pack, which is also available in a hamburger variety.

How are they?

These are delicious, but with a big asterisk. And that asterisk is because these really don’t taste like White Castle sliders, neither the ones you get from the restaurant nor the frozen ones from the grocery store (and yes, I can confirm there is a difference). Part of the White Castle experience, especially if you get them fresh off the grill, is the pillowy softness of the bun that soaks up that distinctive beefy-onion flavor. That’s what’s missing here, along with the signature White Castle smell. If not for the packaging, I’m not sure I would have associated these with White Castle. But if you are just looking for cheeseburger-flavored pizza rolls, these really hit the spot. The outer shell has a nice crunch, and the filling provides a satisfying cheeseburger flavor with just a hint of onion. My only disappointment was the lack of White Castle smell and taste.

Anyone who’s made pizza rolls knows there is about a 15-second difference between perfect crispness and a crime scene with filling splattered everywhere. These are no different, as evidenced by the pictures, except at least the oozing cheese makes it look less like something from a horror movie. And keep in mind, I’m the guy who turns on the oven light constantly to check on my food’s progress (and also the guy who always ignored my parent’s warnings and pressed my face against the microwave window), so I was watching these with fervent dedication, and I still got the dreaded explosive results.

Anything else you need to know?

It’s generally not a great idea to read the ingredients on Frankenstein-type food products like this, and that’s the case here. The back of the bag raises more questions than it answers, such as, what the heck is “natural grilled hamburger type flavor”? I didn’t expect this to only contain chopped up White Castle sliders, but the long list of ingredients (including chicken fat) probably does explain why these don’t taste how I thought they would. Also among my questions is how water is the first ingredient in these (as a refresher, ingredients are listed in descending weight order).

Conclusion:

If you don’t go in expecting the signature White Castle flavor and instead are just looking for a tasty and unhealthy snack, then you should enjoy these. And if you don’t want to make the significant financial commitment on a 40-ounce bag, an 18-ounce version is also available.

Purchased Price: $11.49
Size: 40 oz. party pack
Purchased at: Kroger
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (6 bites) 190 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 660 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.

White Castle has had a line of frozen tiny sliders for years. But now there are White Castle Desserts to help you complete your White Castle meal from the freezer aisle.

I know it says “mini” on the boxes, but I didn’t realize how so until I opened one. They fit comfortably in the palm of my hand. They’re super adorbs! I just want to cup them in my hands and tell them how cute they are, like a pet mouse.

There are four White Castle Desserts to choose from: Fudge-Dipped Brownie, Fudge-Dipped Peanut Butter Pie, Fudge-Dipped Strawberry Cheesecake, and Gooey Butter Cake.

Fudge-Dipped Brownie

This is similar to the Fudge-Dipped Brownie offered at White Castle restaurants. I’ve never had one, so I can’t compare the two, but the freezer aisle version is mostly like biting into a pie shaped piece of fudge. I know it’s fudge dipped, but the whole thing feels and tastes like I’m eating fudge. Look at the cross section photo below; it looks more like fudge than a brownie.

The section closest to the stick, the unfudged part, does taste more like a box mix brownie, than fudge. There are chocolate chips, but with my taste buds overloaded with fudge flavor, it’s impossible to distinguish them. So they’re there more for show.

It may be tiny, but it’s dense. How dense is it? It’s more so than the number of times I used the word “fudge” in the last two paragraphs. It’s so much so that there’s no way I could eat another right after eating one.

Purchased Price: $6.99
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 240 calories, 100 calories from fat, 12 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 26 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

Fudge-Dipped Peanut Butter Pie

Before trying any of them, I thought this variety would end up being my favorite because the chocolate and peanut butter combo has almost always made my lips emit an “MMMM.” But with this mini dessert, my mouth thought about letting out a “meh.”

The peanut butter part of the pie tastes similar to a PB cookie. It’s dense, much like the brownie one. It’s also gritty and has a noticeable saltiness to it. The fudge coating also seems to have gained some of that nutty flavor. There’s also a cocoa cookie crust on the bottom that enhances the fudge flavor.

The dessert as a whole tastes like a generic peanut butter cup, which sounds like a good thing. But much like the Fudge-Dipped Brownie, it’s also bit too dense and rich for me, which makes it less appealing. Also, its saltiness is a little more than I’d like.

Surprisingly, this ended up being my least favorite. It’s far from terrible, but when I compare it with the others, I prefer the others more.

Purchased Price: $6.99
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 280 calories, 190 calories from fat, 21 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 14 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.

Fudge-Dipped Strawberry Cheesecake

This is the one that stood out for me. It’s the one where I said to myself, “Sugar count, be damned! I want another.”

The flavors come in waves. The strawberry hits first, which reminds me of strawberry ice cream, then a cheesecake tanginess comes across my taste buds. The graham cracker-like crust adds a bit of saltiness to the dessert that enhances the other flavors. But it also adds a texture that’s like compacted wet sand falling apart. I thought the fudge would make this more like a chocolate dipped strawberry, but the coating doesn’t play a strong role with the dessert’s flavor.

There are darker bits in the strawberry filling and a few streaks that are strawberry jam-like, which help make the fruit flavor stand out and lessen the fudge’s impact. Those streaks are under the coating, so in real life it doesn’t quite look like what’s on the box.

Also, being lighter than the brownie and peanut butter pie varieties helped make me enjoy this more.

Purchased Price: $6.99
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 180 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

Gooey Butter Cake

Gooey is not the most accurate adjective to describe this frozen Butter Cake. Dry and crumbly are probably more correct. Even after letting it sit for the recommended 5-10 minutes, its lack of gooey-ness didn’t change.

I’ve never had a butter cake, but as I chewed my way through this dessert, all I could think about was pound cake, which I very much enjoy. According to the ingredients list, there also a cream cheese component to it, but I didn’t taste it.

It’s not as dense as the other White Castle Dessert because there’s cake involved, which is the reason why the whole thing is dry and crumbly. The top layer is dense and drier than the lower tier and gives the dessert a cookie-like crunch. Both layers need to eaten together to get the optimum flavor because individually they taste just okay.

Even though its textures aren’t optimal, its flavor almost wholly makes up for it. It’s not overly sweet like some of the others, and I could see myself double fisting this.

Purchased Price: $6.99
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 220 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 22 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

Other Things

• Except for the Gooey Butter Cake, they’re quite solid when pulled out of sub-zero temperatures. So if you do try to take a bite out of them at that point, pulling a piece away is going to make it feel as if any teeth aligning work you’ve gotten done has just gone to waste.
• The long-winded instructions on most of the boxes say to let them thaw for 5-10 minutes before eating. But, for some reason, the brownie one says to wait 15 to 30 minutes. Fortunately, I found all of them to be soft enough after three minutes.
• The White Castle logo is on the sticks, but with half of the dessert I’ve eaten the logo is face down. It’s a minor thing, but I guess I’m a sucker for consistency.

I’ve never lived on the East Coast, which means I’ve never had the pleasure of eating at White Castle. I can’t decide if I just used the word “pleasure” sarcastically, because, while having never been there, I have heard much about the establishment. I’ve heard White Castle burgers are magical, like crack.

Wait, calling crack magical isn’t a good idea. I’ve heard White Castle burgers are magical, like unicorns. It’s said they’re the ultimate hangover cure. I’ve also been told they’re the ultimate hangover cure because you will eat them, and then immediately blast all of last night’s alcohol consumption into your toilet bowl.

They’ve also been called the ultimate drunk food, presumably because anything tastes good while you’re drunk, and you’re already going to be full of regrets in the morning, so why not add the fullness of White Castle sliders on top of that?

So basically, White Castle is just like Taco Bell, except with burgers instead of…whatever you want to call what Taco Bell serves.

I’ve seen White Castle burgers in the frozen food aisle before, but never picked any up. I felt as though they wouldn’t be truly representing the White Castle experience. But then I saw their new Jalapeño Cheeseburgers and I thought, well, hell. I’m not heading to the East Coast any time soon. What better time than now, and what better place than here, on the Internet?

There were both microwave and stovetop cooking instructions on the back of the box. My first instinct was to head straight for the microwave, but then I saw that the stovetop instructions were “for steaming of burgers”. That seemed to indicate that that would be the more authentic way to go, so I decided to give it a shot.

…Except one of the first directions involved using the “steamer insert”. I looked in the box. I looked at the box. I saw absolutely nothing that looked like a steamer insert.

Was I going mad? Had there been a mistake, where the insert was not included? Or had I been somehow bested by White Castle frozen cheeseburgers, which should seemingly be one of the easiest foods to prepare on the planet? Either way, I was lost. Without my steamer insert, I could not cook them on the stovetop.

So, I moved on to the microwave, which had instructions that I could actually follow without questioning my sanity. The burgers (sliders, technically) come in packs of two – open the side of the package, break the connected sandwiches apart, and nuke. Mission accomplished.

The first thing I noticed was that the buns are both soft and chewy. They don’t have much by way of flavor, but they’re generally inoffensive – fluffy, but not intrusive.

Next came the onions. They actually gave a little bit of a crunch, which is impressive for a frozen, microwaved burger. It tasted almost like there was onion flavor in the meat itself. I was impressed by how much flavor they added to the party.

The burger patty had White Castle’s signature punched-out holes in it, which made it look like I just rolled a meaty five. Not bad if you’re playing a 2d6 game. Wow, that took a turn towards nerd super fast.

The meat itself was sub-par. The package claims that it’s 100 percent beef, to which I’ll give the benefit of the doubt, but it had about 5 percent flavor. I get the idea that White Castle is pretty much supposed to be shittyburgers, but it was almost like the meat was an afterthought. They didn’t taste bad, they just didn’t taste like much of anything, besides some grease.

The cheese, which was pepper jack, melted nicely in the microwave and added a creaminess that complimented the crunch and flavor of the onions.

The real selling point here was the jalapeños, and they didn’t disappoint. They didn’t set my mouth on fire, but there was a nice jalapeño flavor and heat that built as I made my way through my two sliders in eight bites.

I was surprised that the flavor was so bold for such a seemingly cheap burger. I have to wonder, though: where were the peppers? I didn’t see any when I flipped the top bun off to take pictures. There wasn’t any pepper texture, unless it was mixed in with the onions. The only other source would be in the pepper jack cheese, which is not really that hot. Mysterious.

White Castle Frozen Jalapeño Cheeseburgers come in three packs per box, which means the serving size is two sliders. This is a very odd serving size. As I mentioned, I was able to eat two burgers in eight bites, which is equivalent to quite a small snack. You microwave them inside the bag, so having three would be awkward, and eating four at once leaves you with two stragglers. Perhaps this is some cunning plan by White Castle to get you to buy more than one box at a time.

While neither drunk nor hungover while eating my sliders, I found myself enjoying the White Castle Frozen Jalapeño Cheeseburger experience. In this case, the whole was more than the sum of its parts. With an unremarkable bun and meat patty, it seems like these burgers would disappoint, but the large presence of the onions and invisible jalapeños added lots of flavor and texture, and the cheese melted nicely and smoothly. While it would make for an awkward meal, a pack of these sliders would be perfectly acceptable as a quick snack or desperate hangover fix.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 package (2 cheeseburgers) – 310 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of total fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 560 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugars, 14 grams of protein, 4% vitamin A, 10% calcium, 10% iron..)

Item: White Castle Frozen Jalapeño Cheeseburgers
Purchased Price: $4.49
Size: 6 cheeseburgers
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Unicorns. Definite jalapeño presence, despite lack of evidence. Nerd jokes about meat patties. Creamy cheese melts nicely. Onions added lots of flavor and crunch.
Cons: Crack. Bun was flavorless. Where’s my steamer insert? Meat patty offered little. Hangovers. Serving size too small, with odd quantity in box.