Why You Might Not Want To Use A Meat Thermometer When Cooking Hot Dogs

People use the phrase "as American as apple pie," but if we had to rank one food as quintessentially American, it would be the hot dog. Backyard BBQs usually have both hamburgers and hot dogs, but for how inexpensive they are and how easily they cook, hot dogs are the king of summertime gatherings, as well as an easy way to add protein to a quick meal. They are simple to heat up, but out of all our tips you need when cooking hot dogs, the most important may be to avoid piercing the skin with a sharp meat thermometer needle.

While it may feel appropriate to use a meat thermometer to check the temperature of a hot dog, it's really not necessary, and might even have a negative impact on the hot dog. Primarily, checking the internal temperature of a hot dog is unnecessary from a food safety standpoint. Hot dogs are packaged and sold already fully cooked, so in theory, you could eat them cold, straight out of the packaging, though they might not be as delicious. However, poking a hole in the casing of the dog is almost guaranteed to let the juices escape from the hot dog, leading to a drier, tougher frankfurter, so it's best not to stab the sausage with a thermometer.

The simplest way to ensure that your franks are fully hot and ready to eat is to follow the cooking directions on the packaging. Most directions recommend cooking for about six to nine minutes, and offer various cooking methods like steaming, grilling, boiling, microwaving, or cooking on the stovetop. Look for changes in texture to the outside of the hot dog, like browning, blistering, wrinkling, or the skin tightening or splitting open, to know when they are hot and ready to eat. Also, while social media trends may encourage you to cook the hot dogs while they are still in their packaging, we do not recommend this method; heating plastic can leach chemicals into the food that are unsafe for human consumption. 

Our favorite method for cooking hot dogs requires two steps, but the juicy results are worth it. Start by simmering or poaching and then follow up with a stint on the grill to finish, as no one wants a soggy dog straight out of the hot dog water. If you don't have access to a traditional grill, you can steam the hot dogs in a pan with about a half-inch of water and cover with a lid. After they've steamed to a perfect plumpness, drain the water, add a bit of fat to the pan and turn up the heat to sear the hot dogs for a bit of grilled perfection. If even that sounds like too much work, your trusty air fryer will easily crank out beautifully blistered dogs.