A Dedicated Hot Dog Cooker Is the Spirit of American Summer
If hot dogs are America, hot dog cookers are how America gets made. We tried a few, and liked two.
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Hot dogs are America: fast, cheap, often beefy, and heavily processed. The hot dog careens between extremes of puritanicalism (the mustard-onion demagogues of New York) and wild excess (kimchi dogs, Coneys, Chicago-style garden dragging). It is deeply romanticized, almost certainly bad for you, and full of controversy—mostly about ketchup and being a sandwich. Bless the hot dog. The hot dog is American holiness.
And so of course we would need special cookers for hot dogs only. You can cook a hot dog on pretty much anything, sure. But why not cook them on the hot doggiest hot dog cooker, the best hot dog cooker for only hot dogs?
After we tested multiple visions of dedicated hot dog machine, it turns out the best home hot dog cookers are offer the same thing you'd find at your local 7-Eleven. The Elite Gourmet Hot Dog Roller and Oven ($44) is a miniature hot dog maker, with a warmer tray beneath to lightly toast buns. For larger party vibes, the best hot dog maker is a big steamer box like the Nostalgia. Either is a beautiful match to your preference of Nathan's Famous or Hebrew National.
If you need to char up a dozen burgers and 20 hot dogs at the same time, you may need to graduate. Roll with one of our favorite big stand-up griddles like the Traeger Flat Iron 3-Burner ($900)—or check out our guide to the best grills. For an otherwise excellent summer, see other WIRED backyard guides to the Best Lawn Games, Best Outdoor Lights, and the Best Pizza Ovens. Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Elite Gourmet Hot Dog Roller and Toaster Oven This is no mere hot dog cooker. This is an Elite Gourmet hot dog cooker, designed in California's City of Industry—names whose epic sweep seems to outstrip all possible meaning. But the ambitions of the hot dog cooker itself are more humble, and so is its price. And so it succeeds. The Elite Gourmet hot dog maker is, at heart, a roller-style hot dog cooker like the one you'll find at any convenience store in America. Every American summer since the 1950s has been hotter, better, and meatier with the help of a roller grill, thanks to the dogged efforts of a crackerjack young engineer named Calvin MacCracken. In a little less than 15 minutes, this cooker will cook up four hot dogs to a food-safe 165 degrees Fahrenheit (yes, I measured), on heated stainless steel rollers that'll make sure the cooking is even. It'll also slowly warm four buns in the oven space below, well shy of true toasting. Each compartment gets a crumb tray or a drip tray, for easy cleaning. The rollers are best cleaned when still rolling and when still a bit hot, by using a gingerly held wet rag and the magic of steam. And that's it. Four hot dogs. Four buns. No real problems. It's too small for a big party. But maybe four hot dogs is already a party? Just note that the cheese from cheese-stuffed hot dogs will be hard to get off the rollers, if you let American cheese burn onto hot rollers. At least one truly angry Amazon review behooves me to point this out. Specs Dimensions : 7.5" deep x 12" wide x 7" tall Power : 210 watts Type : Roller hot dog cooker with toaster oven Capacity : 4 hot dogs, 4 buns Features : 30-minute oven timer, 5 rollers, removable drip and crumb trays
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Nostalgia Extra Large Hot Dog Steamer There's something about the particular softness of a steamed bun and a taut-snapped, natural wrapped, kinda wet hot dog—it is a study in American contrast. It is my childhood as lived near bleachers and parking lots, or amid the sawdust and gravel of budget fun. This hot dog steamer is made by a Wisconsin company that literally calls itself 'Nostalgia,' and that's precisely what they're selling. This bright-colored, thick-plastic, triple-tiered steamer feels like a Fisher-Price toy for carnivores. The water goes on the bottom. The hot dogs—28 of them if you double-stack the small ones—go in the middle steamer drawer. The top compartment will hold a tight-packed max of 12 small buns. But don't worry, the buns cook faster than the hot dogs. Turn it on high, and the hot dogs are cooked within about 15 minutes. Don't put the buns in till about five minutes before you want them, or they'll get not merely soft, but wet with steam. Turn it down to warm, it'll hold at a food-safe 160 degrees Fahrenheit or so. This is a slightly rinky-dink device, with the heft and feel of an old Igloo Cooler. But my family has nonetheless had the same Playmate Igloo cooler since I remember being alive. Keep it clean, and you should be able to hang onto this awhile. Just note that when you pull out the hot dog steamer drawer, a little bit of hot dog water will drip onto the table. If not outside, lay out a couple paper towels before firing this thing up. Specs Dimensions : 11" wide x 9" deep x 13" tall Power : 600 watts Type : Bun and hot dog steamer Capacity : 20 hot dogs and 6 buns (advertised). But I fit 28 and 12 Features : Warm and hot settings
Look, if you're trying to feed a football team, no little hot dog cooker will do. What you'll want is one of our favorite griddles or grills. No wee steamer can beat a 33-inch Traeger griddle, my favorite griddle of all backyard griddles. There are a couple griddles, however, that seem custom made for hot dogs and buns.
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
This Blackstone Iron Forged Air Fryer Combo comes with two air frying baskets and a third warming basket underneath the griddle. Well, guess what? If you don't turn on the air fryer fan, that means you've got three big warmer baskets, ready to make hot dog buns all toasty and nice. I haven't tested this claim, but Blackstone swears you can fit and cook 126 hot dogs across this griddle plate, for you and 125 of your closest friends.
This Cuisinart griddle is actually a model I like best for smashburgers and steak sears, because it can get so ridiculously hot when cranked on high. But turn it down to medium, it'll be good for dozens of hot dogs—with a warming chamber below the griddle plate that'll lightly toast hot dog buns in a few minutes.
If you're going to ask me for the implement that has cooked most of the backyard hot dogs I've had in my life—the ones that come with hard black grill marks? It's going to be something a bit like this Weber charcoal, a budget-friendly tank with low maintenance needs that WIRED has been recommending for years. It will serve you here, too. The 18-incher will serve a family of five. Bigger will serve more. But make sure you grab a cover to protect it. Hot Dog Cookers We Don't Recommend
This little hot dog cooker works with all the simplicity of a toaster oven: Pick a toast level, push down the lever, then wait for the spring to pop back up. The hot dog buns fit into a pair of semicircular openings that look like broad cartoon smiles. The hot dogs get thrown down the metal-caged hot dog tubes. But alas, the buns get stuck on the way down, and also on the way up. The 'hot dog in a tunnel' design is not merely distracting visually, it doesn't cook the hot dogs to high internal temps before the edges of the buns start to burn. And depending on the length of your chosen hot dog, just the tips will emerge from the toaster when it pops up. This will leave you to fish scalding hot dogs out of the cooker with a fork.
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