Give Hot Dogs These 2 Tangy Toppings For An Atlanta-Style Cookout

No matter where you are in the country — or the world, really — there's probably a regional hot dog style worth exploring. There are plenty of famous frankfurter flavors out there, with U.S. hot dog styles encompassing the veggie-strewn Chicago dog or the dirty-water hot dogs of New York; but there are also some styles that fly a bit lower, ducking the culinary radar. Case in point is the Atlanta-style hot dog, which enhances a classic with a few local favorites to create a dog all of its own.

Making an Atlanta-style hot dog starts with a fairly standard chili-dog setup: bun, hot dog, chili — sometimes shredded cheese and/or drizzle of mustard. After that, things start to get more unique, with the addition of a layer of creamy coleslaw and a sprinkle of diced Vidalia onions, a sweet allium variety originating just a few hours' drive from A-Town.

This combination of ingredients may sound unusual for topping a sausage, but it's simple enough to imagine the flavor profile. As one Redditor explains, "[It] sounds kinda like cleaning up the last bit of the plate at a bbq and there's a little bit of everything that you just mash together and fork into your gob." This is perhaps not the exact imagery that the best hot dog restaurant in Georgia, The Varsity, would use to describe its Chili Cheese Slaw Dogs, but it is fairly apt. Unlike other culinary creations that sound like they could be credited to a tipsy uncle at a cookout, however, the combination of cold and crisp sweet onions and tangy coleslaw on top of a warm chili dog is one that doesn't disappoint.

While this hot dog style exists aplenty in Atlanta, and is known by many as a culinary tradition of the city, it actually extends well beyond Georgia's capital. In fact, culinary consensus says that the slaw dog is not a famous food from Georgia at all, but instead owes its origin to another state in the Appalachian Mountains region: West Virginia.

Back in the 1920s, it is said, slaw and dog first came together in the wild, wonderful Mountain State, largely as a food of necessity. During the Great Depression, hot dogs were an affordable source of protein for West Virginians, and cabbages an inexpensive vegetable, making the ensuing combination a logical, if unusual, step. Widely accepted as the first record of the slaw dog is a 1922 newspaper ad for Charleston, West Virginia's Stopette Drive-In. But while it may have gotten its start there, the creative pairing of flavor and utility saw the dish spread throughout the Southeast.

Although hot dogs topped with coleslaw might not be unique to Atlanta, that doesn't mean that the Atlanta-style hot dog can't claim its own space among the field. Some say that it's a drier coleslaw — intended to keep from drenching the bun — that makes the city's slaw dogs special. For others, it might be the option to forgo the chili and take the frank with just creamy cabbage. Vidalia onions, too, are hard to argue with as a topping for the city's sausages. Sweet onions are traditional in West Virginia as well, but nothing quite compares to the mild and sugary variety found in the fields of Southern Georgia. Atlanta isn't the only place to serve a slaw dog, but they sure do sling a good one.