Published July 3, 2026 04:00AM
A hot dog is not a grand cru Burgundy.
You wouldn’t know it from reading the roundups of “best hot dogs” published each year around this time. The contenders are ranked. They’re scored. They’re rolled around on the palate and scrutinized for subtle notes of something or other.
This is not the way any reasonable person eats a hot dog.
Often, the dogs under consideration are actually distinct types it makes no sense to compare or rank. “There are so many different regional styles,” says chef, author and hot dog pundit Farideh Sadeghin. “One of the things I love doing when I travel is exploring these classics that many people don’t know about.” That’s the kind of open-hearted curiosity and spirit of adventure we should all be bringing to our hot dogs.
In The Hot Dog Cookbook: 50 Recipes for the World’s Best Food, Sadeghin brings home what she’s discovered in a compendium of hot dogs from all over the planet. The recipe for any topping you could possibly want is here, from Argentine chimichurri to Alaskan onions sauteed in Coca-Cola.
Sadeghin has some sound and even surprising advice for cooking and serving the sausages themselves, particularly when it comes to doing it outdoors. “It’s a low-maintenance food that begs for a little sunshine,” she says. Depending on what’s available at a given campsite, she’ll either grill directly over the firepit or cook in a cast-iron pan on a portable stove. But it’s her hack for hauling hot dogs on a hike or a picnic that’s really changed the game for me: “If you boil the dogs ahead and store them in boiling water in a heatproof bottle or thermos, they’ll stay warm for four to six hours or so,” she says. When you stop for lunch, decant the dogs, pop them in buns, and you have a hot meal right there on the trail. Brilliant.
“Every hot dog is a sausage,” Sadeghin says, “but not every sausage is a hot dog.” Even within the hot dog category, the options are remarkably diverse. The following guide does not comprehensively cover the breadth of different hot dog styles available across the U.S., but it does give a sense of just how much variety is available to fill your grill and fuel your outdoor adventures this summer. Ask not which hot dog is best; get excited about which style you’ll try next.
Frankfurter
What’s known as a Frankfurter Würstchen in the city of Frankfurt—a lightly smoked pork sausage in a sheep casing—has a protected geographical status in Germany. We use the name frankfurter a lot more loosely stateside. These days, more often than not an American frankfurter is an all-beef sausage, with or without a casing. (There are exceptions. See under “Footlong,” below.)
Classic Example: Sabrett Skinless Beef Frankfurters
I happen to love a snappy dog, and the Bronx-made Sabrett line includes an outstanding all-beef frankfurter with a surpassingly snappy natural casing: the iconic New York street cart dog. But Sabrett vice president Mark Rosen confirmed that this skinless dog is the company’s biggest seller, and if you’re not into a snappy casing, who am I to judge? These have all the rich beefy flavor and hickory smoke that Sabrett dogs are widely loved for, with a more tender bite.
Wiener
What they call a Wiener Würstchen in Germany–or, confusingly, a Frankfurter Würstel in Austria–is pretty close to what’s typically called a wiener stateside: a mix of pork and beef, finely chopped to a smooth texture, in a casing made from sheep intestine. A U.S. version may contain any or several of the original’s bright and warming spices, including paprika, coriander, white pepper, and ginger.
Classic Example: Smith’s Natural Casing Wiener
Made in Erie, Pennsylvania, by a business in operation since 1927, this old-school pork-and-beef wiener has my kind of lamb casing. Unlike many of the hot dogs on supermarket shelves, these don’t have an acrid smoke flavor mixed in; they’re naturally smoked over hardwood for a softer smokiness that makes all the difference. The company ships nationwide, but you should also always seek out wieners made close to where you live. Hot dogs are a hyper-regional food, and that’s a big part of their appeal.
Kosher
All-beef kosher hot dogs, produced under strict supervision and guaranteed free of mysterious pig parts, have long been a popular choice even among those who do not keep kosher. Those who prefer a skinless dog will appreciate that kosher dogs come without the sheep and hog casings other hot dogs have.
Classic Example: A & H Kosher Beef Hot Dogs
Unlike some hot dogs labeled kosher, this brand is officially Glatt kosher, a stricter certification. Even if that’s not relevant to your own dietary practices, the all-beef dogs from New Jersey-based producer Abeles & Heymann are on another level. Smokier. Beefier. Sturdy enough to hold up beautifully on the grill.
Veggie
Hot dogs are about welcoming everyone to the table, and plant-based options are more plentiful than ever, available in any grocery store. To me, success or failure in this category comes down largely to texture. Whatever it’s made of, I want a veggie dog to offer some resistance when I bite in.
Classic Example: Field Roast Classic Smoked Plant-Based Frankfurters
Seitan, made from wheat gluten, tends to be my plant-based protein of choice, with a satisfying chew to it and the capacity to soak up flavors like a champ. It’s the base for this toothsome veggie dog and the reason I slightly prefer it to Field Roast’s Classic Signature Stadium Dog, based largely on pea protein. If you want something a little skinnier, smoother, and juicier, go with the latter. The hearty Classic Smoked Frankfurter is harder to overcook, I find, and its meaty texture stands up remarkably well to a tsunami of condiments, which is the way I like to go with a veggie dog.
White Hot
Up around Rochester, New York, this homegrown cousin of German weisswurst is a local icon. A mix of pork, beef and veal, uncured and unsmoked, it’s a singular, subtle dog, often served smothered in the region’s signature spicy meat sauce, plus mustard and chopped onion.
Classic Example: Zweigle’s White Pop Open
You can buy the Rochester-based Zweigle’s brand at any Wegman’s store, or order them direct from the company. The “Pop Open” style does just that as its hog casing chars on the grill. Zweigle’s also offers skinless whites, as well as something they call Texas Red Hots, another variety altogether (see below). Any of these is like a secret handshake among hot dog illuminati and the mark of a next-level grilling spread.
Red Hot
The red hot is the yin to the white hot’s yang; the different varieties around the country really warrant a taxonomy all their own. In Chicago, what they call a red hot is only as red as any hot dog cured with nitrates or nitrites. Elsewhere, things get a lot more vivid. In North Carolina and Maine, a bold dose of dye makes for hot dogs as red as the stripes on Old Glory.
Classic Example: W.A. Bean & Sons “Red Snapper” Franks
This Maine favorite, a pork-beef mix in a natural casing, is perhaps the reddest of America’s red hots and surely its snappiest. Founded in 1860, Bangor-based W.A. Bean & Sons produces franks with a color and a curvature straight out of a cartoon. This style seems to me the pinnacle of hot-dog-ness, which is to say: fun. (If you’re not into fun—i.e., can’t get with the red dye—W.A. Bean does offer Maine Snappers without it.)
Footlong
To me, the footlong is Manifest Destiny applied to the hot dog: As long as you’re going there, why not go all the way? Elias Cairo, co-founder and head sausage maker at Olympia Provisions in Portland, Oregon, has his own take: “I do believe that a frankfurter should hang out of the bun, so everybody gets at least one or two bites of the unadulterated sausage on each side. That’s just a sausage maker wanting people to enjoy sausage for sausage’s sake. Then you can have all the stuff you want on top, make it your own. But take a moment.”
Classic Example: Olympia Provisions Uncured Pork Frankfurter
By now it should be clear that I am against the very notion of a “best” hot dog. That doesn’t mean I can’t declare my personal favorite, and the Olympia Provisions Uncured Pork Frankfurter is it. This footlong is all pork in a natural lamb casing–a frankfurter in the European style–made with freshly ground coriander and smoked over a mix of hardwoods for a pervasive but balanced smoke flavor. “Uncured” in this case means that Cairo uses no artificial nitrates or nitrites; the curing happens by way of naturally occurring nitrates in celery powder.
Like Sadeghin, Cairo associates hot dogs inextricably with life outdoors. A former pro snowboarder, he apprenticed in Switzerland under a Jägermeister, or master hunter. (You may know Cairo from Outside’s video series The Game Show, where he shares his no-waste approach to butchering and cooking the wild game he hunts.) Though he takes his meat seriously and has strong beliefs regarding the correct way to build a frankfurter, Cairo has also never met a hot dog he doesn’t love. “I like mustard and raw onion on my frankfurters, but if I’m at a gas station on a road trip and I’m buying one off of the roller, it’s ketchup, mustard, green relish. Eating it, I’m like, this is the best.”
