What can be more American than hot dogs?? Well, other than apple pie and fireworks and icy cold beer…but don’t they all go so nicely together?!! It’s the 4th and to celebrate, we decided to fire up the grill and throw something crazy on it-cheese-stuffed-bacon-wrapped brat, anyone?

Here’s a list of fun ideas for you and your bbq-lovin’ pals. Be safe today…ie, don’t eat too many hotdogs!

 

 

Cheese Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon ketchup

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

4 large hot dogs, knockwurst, or kielbasa

1/2 ounce cheddar cheese, cut into long sticks, or use pre-made cheese sticks

2 Tbsp chopped onion (optional)

1 cup refrigerated sauerkraut, drained, roughly chopped (optional)

4 slices bacon, rolled out and partially cooked

Vegetable oil

4 long hot dog buns

Directions:

Prepare your grill for direct medium high heat. Mix together the ketchup and mustard in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the sauerkraut with the chopped onion, if using, set aside. Slice open the hot dogs, down the center, lengthwise, forming a deep pocket in each, but not cutting all the way through. Coat the inside of each hot dog with the mustard ketchup mixture.

Place a strip of cheese deep within the pocket of each hot dog. If using onion/sauerkraut-top with sauerkraut and onions. Wrap a strip of bacon around each stuffed hot dog, securing with toothpicks at each end. Make sure you wrap tight enough so that the stuffing stays in, but not so tight so that when the hot dog expands will cooking the bacon would tear.

Coat your grill surface with vegetable oil so that the hot dogs don’t stick. If you have a grill screen (a screen with smaller holes so that small pieces of whatever you’re cooking don’t fall through the grill), you can use it, just coat it with vegetable oil first and pre-heat for a couple of minutes. Place the stuffed hot dogs on the grill, stuffing side down. Grill for 2 minutes, until the bacon on that side is cooked, turn the hot dogs a quarter turn and grill for a couple more minutes. Continue to grill for a few minutes each on all sides until the bacon is cooked. Cover the grill in between turnings to help with the cooking.

During the last minute of cooking, open up the hot dog buns and place them open-side down on the grill to lightly toast.

Remove the hot dogs and buns from the grill. Remove the toothpicks fro the hot dogs, place them in the buns and serve.

Makes 4 stuffed hot dogs.

 

Crispy Wonton Hot Dogs with Sesame Ginger Sauce

Ingredients:

12 large wonton sheets

12 hot dogs, turkey-dogs or veggie-dogs

1 C pickled cabbage

¼ C wasabi sauce

1 ½ C veggie oil

Sesame Ginger Sauce for dipping (recipe follows)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

¼  teaspoon sesame oil

¼  teaspoon grated fresh ginger root

2  ½  teaspoons water

Directions

In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, mustard, sesame oil, ginger root, and water.

For the Dogs:

Separate the wonton sheets, using one sheet at a time, spread a teaspoon of wasabi sauce on the wonton sheet. Turn the wonton sheet so it is in “diamond” shape with a corner facing you, one facing away and 2 corners on each side. Place 1oz of pickled cabbage in the center of the wonton sheet and place the hot dog on top. Fold the top corner over the hotdog and begin to roll, folding the ends in. When you get to the end of the wonton sheet, wet the edges to seal the pastry and set aside. Repeat with all of the hotdogs and wontons.

Preheat oven to 350. Heat the vegetable oil to medium and add the wonton-wrapped hotdogs 3 or 4 at a time, depending on the size of skillet used. Fry the wontons until golden brown and crispy and place on a paper towel to drain excess oil. Set aside onto a cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet into the oven for 5-10 minutes to finish cooking the hotdogs. Cut on the bias and serve immediately with the ginger sesame sauce.

Thai Hot Dogs

I got creative with the Whole Foods Market’s brats selection and used jalapeno brat here. I just topped it with mango strips and tempura crispies to achieve the “Thai” flavor. Feel free to add some sort of peanut sauce here or perhaps a coconut milk-based sauce. Below is the tempura crispies techinique.

Tempura Crispies

Combine the tempura batter according to the mix directions. Heat some oil in a small skillet to medium/high. Get a slotted spatula and paper towels ready on the side. Once the oil is hot, take a spoon and dip it into the tempura batter mix and drizzle the batter in, flicking your wrist and getting the batter to splatter like strings.

Allow to fry for 10-15 seconds and remove from the oil with a slotted spatula. Drain on paper towels and serve with jalapeno/mango hot dogs.

 

 

Thanks for watching the Everyday Show, friends!! More fun stuff to come soon!!

As always, giant THANK YOU to our sponsors from WHOLE FOODS MARKET!!