Chicago-Style Hot Dogs

We love visiting Chicago, it is one of our favorite cities in the United States. For a bigger city, people are friendly and it is easy to get around, at least the downtown loop area. Obviously, there are parts of Chicago that should be avoided and there is plenty of news about the violence in South Chicago, but as long as you are smart about where you go, as with any city, you will enjoy your time there. Having a Chicago-Style hot dog is definitely a must when you visit, whether at one of the hot dog specific restaurants or from our choice, a street vendor. We decided to try and replicate the Chicago-Style hot dog and we think that it turned out very well. We couldn’t get poppy seed buns or find the sport peppers, but that didn’t harm the taste, they were still delicious.  We don’t usually boil hot dogs when we have them, but we did in this case to keep them as authentic as possible.  Don’t even think about using ketchup, you won’t even find it available when you are in Chicago. Hopefully you enjoy them as well.

Chicago-Style Hot Dogs

Ingredients

  • 4 All-Beef Hot Dogs
  • 4 Hot Dog Buns
  • 4 tbsp Sweet Pickle Relish
  • 1/4 Yellow Onion – finely chopped
  • 1/2 Tomato – cut into wedges
  • 1 Kosher Dill Pickle – cut into wedges
  • 4 to 8 Hot Chile Peppers
  • Yellow Mustard
  • Celery Salt

Instructions

Boil or steam the hot dogs until heated all of the way through. Place the hot dogs into warmed hot dogs buns and then add the mustard, one tablespoon of pickle relish, onion, tomato, pickle spear, hot peppers, and a dash of celery salt. Be sure to tuck the tomato and pickle wedges next to the hot dog.

Ingredients
Boiled Hot Dogs
Chicago-Style Hot Dog

11 thoughts on “Chicago-Style Hot Dogs

  1. Yummy! There used to be a diner near our house run by an ex-Chicagoan, his dogs were the best! I remember he said he had to special order the buns. Sadly, he sold the place and the hot dogs are back to ordinary.
    Thanks for the recipe!

  2. Those look great – happily it’s nearly lunch time, though I won’t find anything that good.
    On a recent visit to Bletchley Park in the UK we found a South African in a van producing hot dogs similar to this. Really good!

  3. These look pretty authentic! Next time you’re in Chicago and want to order a hot dog tell the vendor to ‘drag it through the garden’ which means give it to me fully loaded!

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