The curse of a backyard barbecue is that the hot dog-to-bun ratio is always wrong. At the end of the evening, you’re either left with a plastic package full of sweaty hot dogs or a dozen buns with no hot dogs in them at all. There’s no in-between.
Thankfully, there are creative ways to use up leftover hot dogs or buns for a satisfying meal or snack without having to buy any more of either ingredient.
What to do with leftover hot dogs?
Tony Fragogiannis, founder of Brooklyn Hot Dog Co., always has frankfurters on hand, but he admits that sometimes they can get a little boring when served just in a bun. “Hot dogs are so versatile and I think they’re underused outside of their most common use,” he says. His other favorite ways to use hot dogs are with eggs for breakfast or as baked breakfast sausages. He’s not alone in this preference. Scrambled eggs and hot dogs, or huevos con salchicha, is a common breakfast across Mexico, and adding sliced peppers and cheese makes it even tastier. Wrapping a hot dog in pancake batter makes for a sweet and savory breakfast version of a corn dog.
Because Brooklyn Hot Dog Co. sells hot dogs in a variety of flavors, Fragogiannis is also getting more creative with alternative uses for hot dogs. “The Buffalo Chicken variety is great for dipping,” he says. “For hot dogs for gyros, I like to split them and pan fry them so all the herbs are activated and you can make your own gyro.”
These nontraditional uses will resonate with anyone who grew up in an immigrant household. Where I grew up, we rarely ate hot dogs in their standard bun form. Instead, they were used as a cheap source of protein, added to wok-fried rice or served with soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. My mother always kept hot dogs or salty cocktail sausages in the fridge for these quick meals.
In fact, Thailand has a dish called American fried rice, which is ketchup fried rice served with chopped hot dogs and sometimes fried chicken drumsticks. “We had American fried rice on the menu at Chao Krung,” says Amanda Maneesirasan, chef and second-generation owner of Los Angeles’ oldest Thai restaurant. While it may seem like a stereotype of what Americans want in fried rice, Maneesirasan points out that the dish was hugely popular in restaurants in the ’70s, when there were only 5,000 Thai people living in the U.S. and the food was still unfamiliar to Americans. “It was a challenge for me and my family to have curry on the menu. [guests] “Nobody ordered that,” she explains. “The one dish that stood out was fried rice with sausage. It didn’t taste the best, but it was comfort food.”
Elsewhere in the world, hot dogs have been incorporated into cuisines wherever American troops have been stationed, such as Korean Army Stew, a spicy instant noodle soup with sliced hot dogs and Spam, Philippine Spaghetti, a banana ketchup-based pasta dish available at the Philippine fast-food chain Jollibee, and Japanese Neapolitan, another ketchup and hot dog pasta dish invented after World War II.
But if you’re looking for the closest thing to a hot dog bun, try Pigs in a Blanket, the easiest way to use leftover hot dogs.
What to do with leftover hot dog buns?
While bread might seem an unlikely dessert ingredient, Manee Sirasan has fond memories of eating ice cream sundaes tucked into hot dog buns as a child in Thailand. “It’s basically an ice cream sandwich,” she says. “A real ice cream sandwich.” The sundae starts with a fluffy bun filled with coconut ice cream, then layers it with toppings like sweet sticky rice, crispy mung beans and toasted peanuts. Manee Sirasan has recreated this memory for her latest outing, Bang Bang Burger, but instead of a hot dog bun, she uses a Japanese milk bun. “When the bread is soaked in evaporated milk, you can taste everything,” she says. “It has such a rich texture.”
For Fragogiannis, bread is easy to work with as leftovers: “You can make French toast with the leftover bread,” he says, sticking with the breakfast theme, “or, if you have a lot left over, you can make bread pudding.”
Other savory options include spreading garlic butter on half a loaf of bread for a quick garlic bread, or toasting stale bread until dry and crispy for salad croutons. Fragogiannis also uses the bread for sandwiches, too: meatball subs, cold cuts, ham and cheese, you name it. “It’s bread, after all,” he says. “It’s so versatile.”
