Hot Dogs And Slaw For Memorial Day

The Memorial Day food question for us usually boils down to “will it be hamburgers or hot dogs for the meal and since we recently had burgers, we opted to go with the dawgs this time.  I’ve mentioned several times that I grew up in an area of West Virginia where hot dogs were topped only sauce (chili), mustard, and onion and slaw was not even an offered option (it is in most places now like the rest of the state).  But not being from that area, Bev and Pat like slaw dogs so the simple menu for just us was hot dogs and slaw.  While I never put slaw on my dawgs, I do like it as a side dish.  The key to a good hot dog is the sauce and we have played with many recipes over the years to have now settled on My Dad’s West Virginia Hot Dog Sauce  which came from the “Tried And True” blog.  Bev omitted the beef broth and changed the cooking method a lot to get the recipe below.  The original recipe and pics can be found by clicking on the above link.   

My Dad’s West Virginia Hot Dog Sauce - Adapted from Tried and True

Ingredients:

3½ pounds 90/10 ground beef

14.5- ounce can beef broth

2 yellow onions, peeled and finely diced (food processor)

1 large red bell pepper, trimmed, seeded, and finely diced (food processor)

Water as needed

12oz. can tomato paste

2 tablespoons chili powder

4 teaspoons cumin

4 teaspoons garlic powder

4 teaspoons paprika

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 cup Heinz chili sauce

4 tsp K. salt,

½ tsp. black pepper

Instructions:

In order to get finer textured meat in the sauce, rather than brown and break up the meat in a pan, Bev cooks it differently as shown below.  The first one is what I grew up on and the second one is from the above website.  Big texture difference and you may prefer the second one - they are both very good.

1. Break the meat into four large chunks and add them to a stock pot.

2. Just cover with water and cook to an internal temp of around 160F.

3. Remove the meat and the broth to a large bowl and save the liquid.

4. Add the meat to a food processor and pulse to achieve the desired piece size.

5. Meanwhile, to the same pot add a light layer of oil and the onions and peppers and cook until softened (5-10 minutes).

6. Add the meat back to the pot along with the remaining ingredients and enough of the cooking broth to get the desired consistency.

7. Cook for an hour, taste, and adjust salt.

8. Taste and add more chili sauce if needed then cook for another hour and add more broth at the end if needed to achieve desired consistency.

Cole Slaw

While I would have preferred potato salad as a side  for the hot dogs, it won't won't make into a slaw dog and we didn't want to make both.  For the slaw, we decided to use the KFC Copycat Slaw recipe published by Pam on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog.  Rather than reproduce it here, you can get it plus her pics by clicking on the above link. 

Since our neighbor is a big KFC fan we shared the slaw with them.

This is Bev’s slaw dog and mine.

Both my dawg and the slaw were delicious and I would make both again but would use no more than 2 tbsp sugar. While our sauce texture was finer it still needed to be a little less thick to mimic my hometown's hot dogs.

Even though store bought wieners are considered ultra-processed food (which we eat little of) I just can't pass on a good hot dog and I think the sauce, mustard, and onion are also very good on a burger with nothing else except chopped dill pickle.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

5/25/25 meal date