How Do White Castle's Cheeseburger Bites Stack Up Against Frozen Sliders?

Growing up, I missed out on the wonders of White Castle. The nearest location was almost three hours away, and Hot 'n Now just didn't have that same mystique. Now, after a few years spent traveling around the country, I again find myself living in a region lacking a White Castle, and once you've tasted this cheap and forbidden fruit, the craving for bite-size burgers can approach the level of manic.

Thank the food gods for the frozen section at the grocery store. White Castle, knowing the plight of poor schmucks like me, has long offered microwavable versions of its classic sliders. But this past fall, a new product showed up in the freezer case: Cheeseburger Castle Bites.

These slider-flavored nuggets are an interesting (if somewhat baffling) alternative to Totino's Pizza Rolls, complete with all the questionable wisdom, dubious nutrition, and potential tongue searing that comes with this sort of frozen snack. Add in the existential "How did I get here" experience that comes as a side with each White Castle Crave Case, and  Cheeseburger Castle Bites start to sound like either the best or worst idea the fast food chain has ever had.

In truth, my first White Castle slider experience came from one of these freezer boxes. College, late nights, low funds, blah blah—it's a tale as old as English 101. But while the frozen burgers lack the juicy softness of the drive-thru originals, I always found the frozen sliders to be a cheap, passable snack.

Pricing for the new Cheeseburger Castle Bites manages to stay on brand. My local Kroger affiliate charges $11.49 for a 2.5-lb. bag, which amounts to 13 servings of six bites apiece. That's about $1.13 per portion, which is only slightly more than the unit price for the frozen sliders, which cost $6 for six burgers. Though in the latter case, a portion is technically two sliders.

Anyway, enough math. That CBD gummy is kicking in, and it's time to heat up an oven's worth of each to see which tastes better.

Let's start on a high note, with that thick, crunchy outer... shell? Crust? Dough envelope? Whatever you call it, the exterior of these bites is everything a Pizza Roll wishes it could be. There's even a distinct toasty flavor that you won't get at an actual White Castle, where the buns are generally steamed.

As for the filling, it's not bad, exactly. There's significantly less grease than you'd find in your average pizza roll, which makes for a better texture here. But the interior of the bites taste—and this is going to be gross—almost like a White Castle slider someone else has already chewed up. I can't say I recommend them as a fixture in your snack rotation, but if you have a massive Harold-and-Kumar-level case of the munchies, these Bites will cure you for better or worse.

As I sat eating the Bites alongside the Sliders like some viscous White Castle cycle, I pondered the lengths to which we'll go to scratch a fast food itch. In a pinch, both frozen White Castle products offer a decent alternative to the drive-thru at a semi-reasonable price, though the Sliders, it must be said, are the slightly better option. But in this case, as with so many others, you might be better off hitting the kitchen and recreating such cherished treasures yourself.