The Complete Guide To American Hot Dog Styles

Hot dogs are either all-American convenience foods or tubes of mystery meat, depending on who you talk to. What's undeniable is that they're very popular and at the center of some legendary dishes. Hot dogs are more than just unassuming links of mixed beef and pork that never match up in number with that package of buns you bought. Their world is crowded with different regional styles, each with its own etiquette regarding toppings added and brands used — the number of rules surrounding how to eat them is astounding — and there are even rivalries between establishments for the title of who produces the most classic version of some of these styles.

A few American hot dog styles have more to do with the meat used or the cooking method, and you can find them nationwide. But others are hyperlocal to the point where there may be one town and a few random families known for a particular variation. It's not a stretch to say that you could plan out a very long road trip to sample each version and still manage to miss at least a few. Let's take a look at American hot dog styles so that you can get a better idea of the ones you'd really like to try.

Probably the most common style of hot dog that isn't the conventional beef-pork mixture is the all-beef hot dog. You can find these in the pre-packaged deli meat section of most supermarkets in the U.S. thanks to the widespread distribution of brands like Hebrew National and Nathan's Famous, so they're easy to get. 

All-beef dogs include kosher and kosher-style. The meat for kosher hot dogs comes from animals slaughtered according to kosher laws, and the dogs are manufactured in kosher-certified facilities. Kosher dogs aren't supposed to use natural casings, so they usually have a collagen or kosher-certified vegetarian casing. "Kosher-style" hot dogs are all-beef dogs that use the same spices and taste like kosher hot dogs, but they aren't certified as kosher. Those dogs tend to have natural casings.

A more specific regional variation of the all-beef hot dog is the dirty water dog. These are the hot dogs you get from those iconic sidewalk carts in New York, and they usually use the kosher-style Sabrett brand of meat with natural casings. Dirty water hot dogs get their name from the water they're boiled in, which isn't actually dirty but is instead seasoned with spices and vinegar. This broth gives the meat a distinct taste that blends very well with the traditional toppings of mustard, sauerkraut, and onion sauce.

Head out to Arizona, especially Tucson and Phoenix, for the unforgettable regional specialty known as the Sonoran hot dog. This style wraps the hot dog in strips of bacon and stuffs it into a football-shaped roll that's similar to a bolillo, only much softer. The hot dog is then smothered with beans, tomatoes, onions, crema or mayonnaise, salsa, cheese, radishes, and other toppings, and it's served with a yellow guero chile on the side.

This style of hot dog originated in Hermosillo, in the Mexican state of Sonora. Hot dogs made their way south of the border along with baseball, but street vendors near the University of Sonora in Hermosillo began to sell hot dogs as late-night snack food to students in the 1970s. Eventually, the vendors developed the distinct Sonoran-style hot dog with its special bun and loads of toppings. 

In the 1980s, the Sonoran hot dog made its way north of the border thanks to Daniel Contreras, who started the El Guero Canelo hot dog stand in Tucson. He's credited with making the classic Sonoran version popular, and nowadays there are plenty of restaurants and hot dog stands selling their own takes on the dish. El Guero Canelo eventually grew into a chain of restaurants, and in 2021, the chain was named in Travel Magazine's list of "10 Best Hot Dogs in the U.S."

The dirty water hot dog isn't the only style that New York is known for. There's also the Coney Island hot dog, which gave rise to one of the most famous hot dog eating contests in the country. Back in the 1870s, Charles Feltman opened a hot dog stand on Coney Island — this was back when the dogs were still called "dachshund sausages" — and grew the stand into a huge restaurant complex by the early 1900s. One of the workers there was Nathan Handwerker, who eventually left and opened his own hot dog stand, selling the sausages for half the price that Feltman was charging. Nathan's five-cent hot dogs became so famous that they were eventually served at the White House in 1936.

If you haven't guessed already from the worker's name, those dogs grew into Nathan's Famous kosher-style dogs, and in 1972, the company started hosting the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. By the way, if you heard that the contest started in 1916, that's a legend. There may have been something informal, but nothing official was in place until the 1970s.

So, what distinguishes kosher-style Coney Island hot dogs from kosher-style street cart dogs? It's the toppings. Nathan's offers a meaty chili sauce topping for its hot dogs, something that isn't traditionally put on a New York pushcart hot dog.

A regional copycat spawned by Nathan's Famous is the Detroit Coney dog. It's not clear who really came up with this version of the hot dog, but one story claims that immigrants passing through New York and Coney Island decided to use the name "Coney Island" for their version of the hot dog. Regardless of how the style really started, by 1914, a restaurant called Todoroff's Coney Island was selling hot dogs in Jackson, Michigan. In 1917, a Greek immigrant named Gust Keros opened up his own restaurant in Detroit called American Coney Island, and in the 1920s, his brother, William, opened up the rival Lafayette Coney Island right next door. (Family dinners must have been interesting.)

Detroit Coney Island dogs — called Michigan dogs in New York and Vermont — use hot dogs made in Michigan, and they're topped with yellow mustard, onions, and a thin but meaty chili sauce (no beans!). This sauce is known as coney sauce, and it was likely based on a Greek meat sauce called saltsa kima. One of the disputes between the American and Lafayette businesses involves the recipes each uses for its meat sauce.

Another New York Coney Island copy is the Rhode Island hot wiener, also called the New York system wiener. Rather, it was a copy at first, but over time, it evolved into a distinct dish that doesn't look anything like it could come from Nathan's Famous. Rhode Island hot wieners use a wiener made from veal, beef, and pork, covered in mustard, meat sauce, chopped onions, and celery salt. The bun is steamed; never ask for ketchup. The wiener may have a natural casing or be "skinless," meaning there's no casing at all. And don't call it a hot "dog." The hot wieners are small, only about 4 inches long. Diners often have more than one, sort of like how people order several sliders from White Castle instead of one large burger.

Restaurants in the area in the early 1900s used the term "New York system" to indicate that customers were getting an authentic hot dog because at that time, people still associated hot dogs with New York's Coney Island. In the 1930s, Greek immigrants who had been living in New York moved to Rhode Island and entered the restaurant scene. By the 1940s, the term "New York system" became a local label for how these Greek cooks would prepare wieners, and the hot dogs of the early 1900s had become the Rhode Island hot wieners that so many love to eat today.

Fans of regional hot dog styles can be awfully protective of how to construct the perfect version of the dog. New York has its onion sauce, Rhode Island has its specific type of wiener, and Chicago ... well, Chicagoans will not hesitate to tell you how to make a proper Chicago dog. And then at least one will disagree with everyone else and give you shortcuts.

The Chicago dog came about during the Great Depression. A cheap sausage in a bun, covered with a ton of cheap toppings, was a great way to get some nutrition when you didn't have much money. The original version was a little different; it included lettuce.

Chicago dogs usually use meat from Vienna Beef. These are kosher-style all-beef dogs; they're charred or steamed and served on steamed, untoasted poppyseed buns with toppings that are creatively described as "dragged through the garden." Toppings include yellow mustard, bright green relish, onions, tomatoes, a pickle spear, sport peppers, and celery salt. In that order. As with so many other regional hot dog styles, you're not supposed to add ketchup. But that's not all. You also have to add the toppings in the right proportion. None of this light-on-one-and-heavy-on-another; Chicago dogs have to be constructed just so unless you want the taste and texture of each bite to be thrown off.

Red hots, white hots, snappy grillers, Maine red snappers, Carolina red hots — no matter what you call them, there are two things you need to know. One is that the "hot" doesn't refer to any spice, but rather to the first word of "hot dog." The other is that white hots are uncured and unsmoked, and red hots are dyed red. There are smaller regional differences, but the use of "hot" instead of "dog" and the changes in color are the two uniting characteristics of this group of hot dogs.

White hots were first popularized in Rochester, New York, around the 1920s. Syracuse's snappy grillers came along in the 1930s (and oddly, are sometimes called Coneys). White hots are pale mixes of pork, veal, and beef, and they were originally considered lower in quality than the hot dogs that were more pink in color. White hots are grilled, not boiled, and they're often served as part of a garbage plate, which is a Rochester specialty consisting of white hots, home fries, hamburger, beans, and macaroni salad. You can also have a white hot covered in sauce made from onions, molasses, peppers, relish, and other ingredients.

Red hots get their name from their bright red color. The fun part about that is, no one really knows why they were dyed red in the first place. There are theories, but the truth has been lost to time.

Now, it's down to West Virginia and the South for a slaw dog, which is, you guessed it, a hot dog with coleslaw. The original slaw dog is likely the West Virginia hot dog; as West Virginians moved out of the state and into others, they brought their beloved version of the hot dog with them. West Virginia hot dogs have chili, onions, mustard, and coleslaw — except in Marion County and the northern portion of the state, where slaw is a no-no. This apparently has to do with the larger Italian population in that part of the region.

Southern slaw dogs are a bit different. Head down to Georgia, and you'll get a hot dog with coleslaw and mustard, and that's it. It's much simpler, and the slaw can be drier or more moist depending on who made it. Some places have variations like BBQ slaw, too. The hot dog itself doesn't matter that much, with some preferring all-beef and others using red hots.

The half-smoke is an iconic dish in Washington, D.C., and it's served in a bun with toppings, just like a hot dog. But many don't like to call it a hot dog at all. The meat is a smoked, grilled, pork-and-beef mixture in a natural casing that people treat as a sausage, and it may be descended from Southern hot link sausages. But like many other hot dog styles in the region, half-smokes are often served with mustard, onions, and chili as toppings. Occasionally, there's cheese. It's very easy to see why some still consider it a regional hot dog style.

No one's really sure why half-smokes have that name, but it is known that a local meatpacking company called Briggs and Co. started making half-smokes in the 1930s, and in the 1950s, a restaurant named Weenie Beenie started serving half-smokes for breakfast. A few years later, a restaurant named Ben's Chili Bowl started serving half-smokes too, only this time on a bun with those mustard/chili/onion toppings. 

Oddly enough, the half-smoke didn't take off until the 1980s, with regular hot dogs outselling the half-smokes until then. Ben's has become known as the place to go if you want a traditional half-smoke; however, you can find other versions around town also.

The chili dog is obviously a hot dog with chili as a topping. The real questions about it have to do with who invented it, and whether the hot dog is actually required. That's not a joke.

First, the answer for who created the first chili dog depends on the style of chili used. For example, those Detroit coneys have a meat sauce that's kind of like a thinner chili, and they've been around since the 1910s. But chili dogs that use Mexican-American chili (which comes to mind when many think of chili) may have been created in Los Angeles in 1939 at Art's Famous Chili Dogs. Does the Greek-inspired meat sauce meet the requirements to be considered chili? Many people do call it chili regardless of its origins.

One of the more unexpected versions of the chili dog is one that has no dog. This is apparently a thing in the Carolinas, where some families, and even some restaurants, treat a chili dog as a hot dog bun with chili and toppings, but no dog. This doesn't seem to be limited to one specific area within the two states; there are mentions online of chili dogs with no hot dogs in Wilson, North Carolina; Newberry, South Carolina; and random areas around the two states.

Certain city and state styles stand out among all the types of hot dogs available, but they aren't the only ones available. Go to New Jersey for a deep-fried hot dog slathered with yellow relish, or to Los Angeles for the footlong Dodger Dog. Hawaii has its puka dog, with its toasted-on-the-inside bun, Polish sausage, and a huge range of toppings from basic mustard and ketchup to regional sauces like guava mustard. Massachusetts has its thinner buns that don't give you a mouthful of bread with little meat in each bite, and Kansas City has dogs with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and a bun with sesame seeds. And Seattle has chosen cream cheese as a topping for its style of hot dogs.

Baseball stadium hot dogs offer some of the more interesting variety around. We mentioned the Dodger Dog, but there's also the Fenway Frank from Boston, for which you may see Boston baked beans listed as an optional topping. If you catch a game at Minute Maid Park in Houston, jalapenos accompany cheese and chili on your hot dog. No matter where you go, check out the local stadiums if you want to find some interesting choices.

Corn dogs may not be served on a typical bun and have a list of specific toppings that people will argue over, but they're still hot dogs. They're just encased in a cornmeal-based batter and deep-fried instead of grilled or boiled. And they may be one of the few regional hot dog styles where ketchup is just fine and dandy. The hot dog itself can be any type that will stay on a stick. Really, the only thing that you have to have with a corn dog is that cornmeal batter.

The origin story for corn dogs has at least four contenders, but no one knows for sure what the real origin is. Some claim corn dogs first appeared in 1942 at the Texas State Fair. Others claim they started in Oklahoma in 1941. One story claims the corn dog started as the Pronto Pup, a batter-covered dog that was first created in Oregon in 1939. Supposedly a hot dog vendor had to think fast after his stores of hot dog buns were ruined by rain, and he and his wife decided to create a batter and deep-fry the dogs. Yet another story places the origins of the corn dog in 1927, when a New York man filed an application for a patent for a machine that would dip hot dogs on sticks in batter and fry them. But even before then, cooks were baking hot dogs into cornbread. Could those have been the original corn dogs?

Rounding out this list is a general category: Hot dogs made with meats other than beef or a beef-pork mixture. Some of these meats are used as lower-fat alternatives to beef and pork, such as turkey and chicken hot dogs, although the use of those meats doesn't automatically guarantee that the dogs will be "healthy." Others are simply alternative meats with different flavors, such as all-pork hot dogs or those made with bison or buffalo meat.

One alternative meat, however, is a regional specialty. That's the reindeer hot dog in Alaska, made with caribou meat (reindeer and caribou are the same animal; the names are just used in different parts of the world). The hot dogs may include pork and beef, too. Some people are pretty lax with the toppings, adding whatever they want, but a classic combination is a caribou hot dog with onions that have been grilled and then sauteed in Coca-Cola.