Wingin’ It: Marinated Sonoran Hot Dogs to spice up Bills vs. Cardinals

We’re bringin’ the heat to your Bills tailgate this weekend!

Sure, football is a game, but it’s not just a game. Football is an experience. The kind of experience that goes better with a little food. If you’re a Buffalo Bills fan looking for something special to go with your game-day activities, Buffalo Rumblings has you covered!

This week, we’re spicing up your traditional hot dog fare...

Marinated Sonoran Hot Dogs

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We’re starting the 2024 Wingin’ It season off hot — with hot dogs. Also, it’s a little spicy. Double hot! I got the bright idea to marinate a hot dog and figured I’d start the season with it since it’s still objectively grilling season*. By lucky coincidence, something called a “Sonoran hot dog” is popular in Arizona, which provided me with a great direction to steer my marinade.

*Subjectively, grilling seasons extends into the winter if you’re me.

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Marinated Sonoran Hot Dogs

Serves: About 4
Active Time: 45 min
Total Time: Very long but mostly due to the marinating

Ingredients

1⁄₃ cup hot sauce
1 Tbsp vinegar (see below)
1 Tbsp honey
¹⁄₄ tsp cumin
¹⁄₄ tsp cinnamon
1 package hot dogs (skinless beef dogs recommended)
Bacon, 1 slice per dog
Toppings (pico de gallo and mustard is traditional)
Hot dog buns (not sure I needed to tell you this, but here we are)

You’ll need: Measuring cup, plastic bags or small storage container, grill, meat thermometer, foil recommended

1. Pour hot sauce into measuring cup, then stir in vinegar, honey, cumin, and cinnamon to make marinade.
2. Poke holes or slits in hot dogs and place in small container or plastic bag.
3. Pour marinade in over hot dogs and tightly seal container; give contents a good shake. Refrigerate and allow marinade to soak in overnight. (It’s not a bad idea to flip or shake the dogs one or twice during that span.)
4. Wrap bacon around hot dogs and place on foil or tray with bacon ends facing down (using gravity to pin it down). Preheat grill around the medium heat range.
5. Place dogs bacon end side down (to keep that gravity trick working) on the grill. I do recommend foil to retain moisture but going bare on the grill will result in quicker cook times and crispier bacon.
6. Rotate carefully every few min to evenly cook. Remove dogs when bacon has reached desired crispiness. (Mine took about 30 min total.) Ensure food is cooked to safe temperature using meat thermometer

Wingin’ It Tips and Prep Gallery

• I had a package of six hot dogs and tried a variety of methods to poke or add slits to see what worked better (the first picture shows a couple methods well). Don’t fret. If you use the skinless dogs the methods were all pretty equivalent. If you’re curious about brand I’ll just say one word: “Rochester.”
• For grilling purposes, the foil will prevent fat and other drippings from creating flare ups. I tend to also fold the edges up to make a pan. This essentially turns things into a roaster pan similar to how you might prepare a Turkey. This is the best method for retaining moisture in my opinion but the worst for crisping the bacon. Expect cooking times like I experienced.
• The bacon wrap is the hardest part of the whole affair. Putting the ends down to start and grilling until crisp helps, but caution while rolling is huge. You can see in the first picture that not all of mine came out perfect. A fun trick common in recipe creation is to make multiples and just show the best ones. Well just this once take a look at the less successful ones too.
• Speaking of the bacon, it takes a lot more time to cook than the hot dogs themselves. It’s highly likely the exposed dog will be a little burnt. That’s one reason I grilled toward the medium range of heat so that I didn’t end up with ash.