People in Appalachia love a good hot dog and that hot dog has to have chili. In fact, we love the chili so much that we don’t care if there’s an actual dog on that bun or not. We’ll eat just chili and a bun and call it a chili bun.
In many rural areas, there are few to no restaurants but you can count on your local gas station to have a deli with a few hot items. Among those items will almost always be a hot dog with chili. There’s also still quite a few roadside “dairy bars” left in eastern Kentucky. These are the places where you’ll find some of the best hot dogs in the world. Places like the Frosty Ette in Sand Gap, Kentucky, Dairy Dart in London, Kentucky (no longer a drive-in sadly but still serving food), Dairy Cheer in Pikeville, Kentucky, Snack Shack in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky…the list goes on and on.
My mom makes excellent hot dog chili and I’ve been working for years to try to capture her magic. I still don’t quite have it but I’m getting closer. It really is an art to perfect based on your tastes and preferences. You want hot dog chili to be thick enough to stay on your bun and for the meat to be very fine and not lumpy. The basic ingredients to work with are some sort of tomato base, onion, ground beef and chili powder.
Here’s how I make mine…
Hot Dog Chili
2 pounds ground beef
2 15oz cans of tomato sauce
1/4 cup of finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons chili powder
Salt to taste, around a teaspoon
Vegetable or canola oil to cook onion
In a large saucepan, I warm about a teaspoon of canola oil then add the onion and stir it around until it’s soft. Don’t let it overcook and turn brown. Remove from heat for now and set aside.
Put about an inch of water in a large skillet and bring it to boil over medium heat. Once the water is boiling, carefully add in your ground beef. Your water will cool off momentarily but will heat back up. Brown the beef in the skillet, breaking it up as you go with a spoon or a meat crumbler. Once the meat is brown, remove from heat. Drain the beef with a colander in small batches, crumbling the beef more as you remove it from the pan.
Pour the drained beef into the saucepan with the onion. Once all the beef is drained and in the saucepan, return to the pan to stove and turn the heat to medium. Add in the tomato sauce, chili powder and salt. I also rinse the tomato cans out with a few tablespoons of water and add that to the pot.
Bring to boil, then cover and simmer until the liquids have cooked down and the chili is to the desired consistency.
Enjoy on a bun with or without a hot dog!
A few notes:
You can add more onion if you prefer. My husband isn’t a fan so I go light on the onion.
If you prefer a more tomato-y consistency, you can use crushed tomatoes instead of the tomato sauce.
This will keep for two to three days refrigerated in an airtight container. But I bet it doesn’t last that long!
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From the heart and from the holler,
Minda