Highly seasoned sweet onions, simmered in a tomato-based vinegar and brown sugar sauce and spooned over baked hot dogs, dressed with a spicy brown mustard.
Hot Dog Onion Sauce
Y'all. I feel so left out about onion sauce, or more specifically, pushcart onions. I had never even heard of them before now!
Food trucks aren't a big thing where I live, though we do have a few around here and there. We don't exactly have pushcarts here in the Biloxi area either, although Lucky Dog pushcarts do exist in New Orleans and apparently now in Bay St. Louis, over on the Louisiana/Mississippi state line. I've had a few of their dogs over the years.
You'll certainly find hot dog vendor booths at our festivals, though I'm more likely to buy a corn dog there than a plain hot dog!
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From what I remember, Lucky Dogs are pretty basic hot dogs - typical condiments, plus maybe some hot dog chili sauce available, but I don't recall ever seeing any onion sauce like this.
When I learned of this pushcart sauce from New York I poked around to learn more about it. I discovered that Sabrett brand appears to be the onions in sauce they use up there and the one that most copycats are patterned after.
I also found there wasn't a huge amount of variation between the copycats, although some folks use tomato sauce with sugar added as the primary tomato base and others used ketchup which already contains sugar and frankly, made more sense to me. Seasonings can vary a bit too.
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I set out to develop a recipe and found the Sabrett onions in sauce (#ad) on Amazon and decided to pick up a pouch for taste comparison.
Y'all. If you've never had a pushcart onion sauce for hot dogs, you gotta try this. I think that you and your guests will fall in love with it. Even my husband, aka The Cajun, who isn't a particularly big fan of onions, ate up this sauce!
Here's what you'll need to make my version of Pushcart Style Hot Dog Onion Sauce:
For the Onion Seasoning:
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground mustard
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
For the Onion Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large Vidalia or other sweet onions, quartered
- 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
I quartered the onions first, because I didn't want large slices and you'll want to slice the onions fairly thin, about 1/4 inch. Since it's quite a lot of sliced onion I'm using my rotary slicer (#ad). It's a great tool to have on hand for sure!
That's a lot of beautiful, sliced onions right there!
Heat the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium high heat. Add onions, reduce heat to medium and cook onions, stirring regularly, until softened, about 4 minutes. This 12" multipurpose skillet is another one of my Curtis Stone cookware pieces (#ad) - I just love his products!
Add garlic and cook another minute. I'm using what influencers today are calling jarlic. I have always used fresh garlic but after it being absent from the store a few trips, I bought a jar to have on hand. Works for me!
Blend in ketchup, vinegar and brown sugar.
Add the onion seasonings and stir in for 2 minutes.
Whisk together 2 cups of the water and cornstarch and begin whisking into the onion mixture a little at a time.
Reduce heat to a low simmer, cover and cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until reduced and thickened. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.
I opened the packaged Sabrett onions in sauce(#ad) and warmed them up in the smaller separate saucepan to do a taste comparison. In the end, the Sabrett onions had a stronger vinegar taste than mine but I actually liked the homemade better.
These are mine after simmering a bit. I think I got pretty close with the texture and color, yes? They got a little bit darker as you can see from the header photo at the top the longer they cooked.
Now, since we're making some hot dog sauce, we need some hot dogs!
From what I understand, beef hot dogs are most traditional, though the first time I had already thawed regular pork hot dogs in the fridge, so I used those. On the remake pictured below, I used the Kansas City Steak Company beef dogs.
This recipe should cover at least 8 to 10 hot dogs, or more, depending on how much onion you like on your hot dogs, but I'm just doing 4 on this round for the rest of my leftover onions.
Instead of grilling or boiling them, I decided to bake the hot dogs in my little countertop oven (#ad) and roll them around on the tray a few times, because I wanted them to at least somewhat resemble those hot dogs cooked on a hot dog roller machine (#ad). Once only available for commercial use, there are actually some more home cook friendly versions of hot dog rollers out there now if you cook a lot of hot dogs.
From what I understand, beef hot dogs are most traditional, though the first time I had already thawed regular pork hot dogs in the fridge, so I used those. On the remake pictured below, I used the Kansas City Steak Company beef dogs.
This recipe should cover at least 8 to 10 hot dogs, or more, depending on how much onion you like on your hot dogs, but I'm just doing 4 on this round for the rest of my leftover onions.
Instead of grilling or boiling them, I decided to bake the hot dogs in my little countertop oven (#ad) and roll them around on the tray a few times, because I wanted them to at least somewhat resemble those hot dogs cooked on a hot dog roller machine (#ad). Once only available for commercial use, there are actually some more home cook friendly versions of hot dog rollers out there now if you cook a lot of hot dogs.
I don't have any financial relationship or affiliation with Kansas City Steak Company products, but their beef hot dogs are pretty delicious y'all! I try to keep them in my freezer regularly.
When the onions are about done, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and arrange hot dogs on tray, leaving space in between. I'm just using one tray of 4 hot dogs to finish up my onions. Make a few crosswise shallow slits in the hot dogs, if desired.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until heated through and lightly browned, shaking tray a few times.
Place hot dogs in buns and top generously with the hot dog onion sauce.
Now, you can top your hot dogs however you like, but apparently the most traditional way is to simply top the hot dogs with the onion sauce and finish with a spicy brown mustard. I'm using Creole mustard here.
Use these onions with your Italian sausage and pepper rolls, for bratwurst or pile them on a burger!
For more of my favorite sauces and condiments, check out the collection on my Pinterest page!
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