I’ve admitted it here before: I love me a good beef hot dog. Do I love them because they are so very good for us and so highly nutritious? I wish. But, at least I’ve been able to find some from our local meat farmers that are better than regular dogs from the store. I also often buy Shelton Turkey Franks from Azure Standard.
I had perfected my whole wheat hamburger bun recipe, but never took the time to make the dough into hot dog buns. In the past when I’d tried to make hot dog buns (from other recipes), they turned out as big as a baseball bat and about that heavy. (We’ve already talked about how none of us want our buns to be heavy.) This time, when I tried to make hot dog buns, I focused on making the buns small. The smaller the buns, the better…right? :)
Using this whole wheat hamburger bun recipe, I rolled out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut the dough into circles using a wide mouth jar. A wide mouth jar isn’t going to make a very big circle, and you might think that the bun isn’t going to be big enough…but keep in mind that these rolls will rise and we do not want a bready bun. No indeed.
Take each circle and roll it up gently…
Almost finished…
And…done. Look at the cute little unbaked hot dog bun. Kinda makes you wish you were a hot dog so you could lay down in there and take a nap, doesn’t it?
Put all the cute little rolled buns in a baking dish. Allow them to rise for about 20 minutes.
Bake the buns for about 25 minutes at 350°. If they aren’t golden brown, leave them in there just a little bit longer. I kinda think it would be fun to bake the hotdog right into the bun, but I haven’t tried it yet. And just for the record, I don’t really wish I was a hot dog, no matter how inviting these buns look.
Carefully slit the buns open at the top with a knife and pop in a cooked hotdog.
Add all your fixin’s and you’ve got a tasty hotdog on a bun that has just a little more substance than the airy ones we find at the store, but they aren’t so bready you feel like you’re eating all bun and no dog.
So what do ya think? Should I try baking the hot dog right into the bun to make a sort of “pig in a blanket”? I think my kids would enjoy that surprise. Although since these hot dogs are made from beef or turkey, can we still call it a “pig in a blanket”? Sometimes life just throws us these difficult questions, ya know?
So humor me will ya? Are you a hot dog lover or not? Am I the only weird one who really appreciates eating real, whole foods…but still likes the occasional hot dog? :)
Try it with the hot dog inside. I make “pigs in the blanket” using a whole wheat biscuit recipe. That is my favorite way to eat a hot dog.
I do like an occasional hot dog – we like the Applegate Organic all-beef hot dogs. Azure sells them as well as Open Harvest. Pricey, but I can’t bear to let my 2 yr old son eat a regular hot dog. He’d eat a hot dog every day for lunch if I let him! :)
Applegate is definitely the way to go. I get them at Sunflower Market or the Real Foods Market. $7-8 a pack of 8. That’s for the beef. Turkey and some other versions are cheaper.
I too use applegates grass fed beef dogs. I often make your corndogs with them. As soon as I saw you rolling the dough, my first thought was to bake the hotdog right in. Chili dogs sound good now with this recipe and the dogs I have already in the fridge and I was planning on chili this coming week :-) perfect!!!
My boys and I love hot dogs. Unfortunatly we buy the .88 cent ones at Wally. They taste better than the more expensive ones that are made the same nasty ingredients. I just look away from them when we fix for now. Someday we will get the healthy ones.
I love your honesty. My family loves hot dogs, too. My husband buys the lousy ones but I look for the ones nitrate-free. Keep wondering if it cow’s tongue or something like that though.
My gpa has been eating cow tongue since he was a boy . He is almost 92 years old so I think he is doing pretty good. lol
Oh you wish you were an Oscar Mayer (organic of course) Weiner, that it what you really want to be-e-e. :-)
Trader Joe’s sells them without the nitrates. That’s what I get when I’ve got a craving for a hot dog.
Cute! I was humming this last night :D
So that’s the secret! I’v tried to make them and they turn out HUGE, like hogie rolls for a giant! I was free-forming them and it just wasn’t working. Note to self: Get wide-mouth jar.
The only problem with that last picture is the dogs aren’t BLACK. I can’t eat them boiled. Gotta burn ’em so they’re crunchy on the outside! :)
Yeah! I’m coming over! :D
My DH thinks I’m weird.
Me too! Blistered and burnt is the way to go!
I usually buy the crescent rolls, wrap the dog and bake. It’s really yummy.
I can’t stand hot dogs but the buns look very yummy! And yes, I am now sleepy after reading your comment about taking a nap inside the bun :)
Yay! Can’t wait to try these! We are huge fans of whole foods, (and use your blog as one of our main resources….in fact, just posted a lazy post about whole wheat where I directed everyone here) but we sure love our hot dogs every once in awhile! :) Great tips!
Is there a reason that you don’t use any gluten in your bread recipes? I was just curious if maybe it has ill effects on your health.
Whole wheat flour naturally contains gluten. These do not appear to be gluten free…but they look delish, don’t they?!
In most of my whole wheat recipes, I allow the flour to soak in water for about 30 minutes before I begin working it, which releases the gluten and makes the bread work well without adding extra gluten.
Still loving hotdogs at 36 and both my little ones still love them. :)
We don’t eat them often. Once in a great while, I will make some for the kids.
My husband got very ill from hot dogs at a school lunch when he was a kid, and he won’t touch them. I’m sure we all have foods we feel that way about!
The Shelton’s are not bad, so we sometimes buy those at our local Fred Meyer (Natural foods freezer section), but we really haven’t settled on one we really love.
Those buns look good, though!
Love, love, love all beef hot dogs!! My husband and I pigged out on them last night, very yummy!!
Ha. I beat you to the hotdog buns! I used your hamburger buns recipe and made hotdog buns as well. The first time they were HUGE!!! But I have perfected mine. Not quite the same way you do, but whatever works. Right? And yes, we do like to have hotdogs some times. They are great cooked over an open fire or on the bbq!
Oh we shamelessly love our hot dogs. I was excited to see nitrate free ones at the regular store this summer.
I have discovered some hot dogs in the supermarket that are without NITRATES AND NITRITES. WOOO HOOO
I was thinking this morning that I need to figure out how to make homemade hot dog buns! My kids love hot dogs and we have found some healthier ones but I was at a loss when it came to the buns. I can’t wait to give these a try!
As I am reading this post, I am enjoying my lunch of a chili dog. Yummy! May have to muster up the courage to attempt the buns.
Thanks for showing us you buns, teehee! We eat the same kinds of foods as your family, but I still LOVE a good hot dog! You’re not alone.
The school cafeteria used to make hot dogs baked in bread when I was a kid. They called them weiner wraps. They were always a huge hit. These would certainly be healthier!
Do try cooking the dogs into the buns! I made a pot luck dish by rolling challah dough around chopped up hot dogs. Just the ends were visible, and they were a huge hit. I bet it would work with the whole dog.
I guess the next step would be to try baking them with mustard and relish too! :)
Oh sister…..We may be obsessed with whole foods, but we are still Americans. (Please tell me you also drive a chevrolet.)
Your hot dog buns look great. Unfortunately my family won’t eat the buns, only the hotdogs. (I get the nitrate free ones when I can find them on sale.) They will eat the dogs wrapped up in a tortilla though–not as much bread.
We only like the ballpark angus beef ones, which are $2.50 per 8pack, so we don’t eat them that often.
I use your pretzle recipe and wrap them around hotdogs and then bake them. Then we cover them with homemade chili and cheese sauce. Not the best thing to eat, but they sure taste good!
I’m definitely an occasional hotdog lover. What’s an all-American summer bbq without hotdogs? I like the Applegate farms beef dogs, and your natural buns look so delicious!
I am a (shhh… cheap) Hot Dog lover.. We are slowly adapting to eating healthy, but the closest we get to healthy is the ones I have a coupon for… =[
I too love the occasional hotdog. Though I cannot stomach turkey dogs or most things “turkey” or “chicken” that are made from mechanically separated poultry. If you like your turkey dogs I suggest you don’t look up what “mechanically separated” poultry looks like. It’s disturbing.
Okay, i made these for the second time today and I’m still messing them up somehow. They look exactly like yours, yet when I bake them they are still the same size, they don’t rise at all in the oven. What is my problem? The yeast is working b/c it does double (at least) in size when i let the dough rest. AHH, i just want it to work!
Ah, shucks. Maybe let them rise just a little bit again before baking them (after you’ve shaped them). Maybe that would work?
Thanks :). I think part of my problem is I made more buns than the recipe required. They still didn’t rise though, so I still have some issues. I’ll take your advice for next time.
I have the same issue…and I even let mine rise some before baking. They are the size for half a They are only big enough for about half a hot dog.
Yeah, mine didn’t rise either. I have these itty bitty little hotdog buns. But it could be my yeast. it didn’t seem to rise very much.
We love them as well. All beef from Whole Foods meat counter or the Applegate brand. My husband cooked me the WF kind and put them into a salad for me the first week after our son was born. They must have tasted extra good at the time since I was starving almost all the time that first week! Now we enjoy them bunless with pea salad on the side.
hi lori,
where can i buy s.s. bread pans and bread bags?
thanks bye ernie
You can find stainless steel pans at Paula’s Bread: http://www.paulasbread.com/ and I just use regular ziplock freezer bags from the store.
I am new to the site & can’t wait to try some of your recipes! I am also new to whole wheat flour (of course I bought a ton of it!:) Am curious how you let your flour soak…how much water do you use?
It differs depending on the recipe…and I’m assuming your question is in regard to soaking the flour to break down the pytates? In that case, you need to soak the flour in a cultured dairy product like buttermilk or yogurt or kefir…or in water with lemon juice.
I am thinking that she was referring to your comment above on October 18th, 2010: “In most of my whole wheat recipes, I allow the flour to soak in water for about 30 minutes before I begin working it, which releases the gluten and makes the bread work well without adding extra gluten.”
I also was unaware that the flour should be soaked before using it in your recipies, and would like to know how much to use and how to adjust for it in the recipe. Or do you mean that you let your mixed doughs rest for 30 minutes before kneading them?
If the flour needs to be soaked in water to release the gluten, I will have specified in my recipes. My Honey Whole Wheat Bread recipe, for instance, requires the flour and water to sit a while so that the gluten can do it’s job better!
Me again, just commenting that I see now that some of your recipes do call for soaking the flour for 30 minutes in water before continuing. As it happened, I came here for the cinnamon buns recipe (very good), read through the pretzel recipe (interesting but did not try), and proceeded on to the bagel recipe (my result was quite good but I need to get some new yeast; 15-year-old yeast didn’t hack it). Thus, my impression that your recipes said nothing about it, because those three do not. Would they benefit from it in any way, do you think?
I guess it couldn’t hurt…but I really haven’t found that all of my recipes need this. My pretzel recipe doesn’t require it and they turn out great for me each time!
Nice looking buns. Sorry, I couldn’t resist ;)
How wide would you say a wide mouth jar is? Just totally measuring straight across the middle?
Two and a half inches maybe?? Something like that!
You know, I never thought of just rolling them like that. Originally I had just made them like bread sticks and sliced them – this is much more efficient. ^^
I also make my own turkey dog buns, and I have finally perfected the shape–I use the lid to my butter dish. I roll the dough out, trace around the lid with a sharp knife, and cover to rise. Once they’re baked, I slice them down the middle–it’s the perfect shape!
I am trying these buns now. I cut the recipe in half because we are a small family.
I actually soaked the ww flour starting last night in the water and I subbed out yogurt for the milk. I’m new to soaking my grains and am wondering if that’s how you would do it??
The mixture last night was terribly thick; however today the buns have risen nicely. We’ll see how they come out of the oven…
okay, they didn’t rise during the baking…am trying it again now. I’m not giving up!!! They look too yummy!
Bummer that they didn’t rise well – I’ve not tried soaking this recipe so I don’t have any good suggestions for you!
success! Tried the third time tonight and I think they worked out pretty well. Awesome recipe – Thanks Laura – Blessings!
I have some Applegate hot dogs in the freezer and chili in the fridge just waiting to be eaten! I am excited about this recipe!
Hmm, I do fine with yeast and always make everything, but these did not rise well for me. I even gave them a while before putting them in the oven. Not sure what I could have done differently?
I’m not sure. These never get super fluffy for me either, they typically stay smaller.
Hi
The hamburger bun recipe has the cut circles raising for 30 min. There’s no raising in this recipe for the hot dog buns. But there’s suppose to be, right?
Also: Tofurkey makes a mean meat free hot dog and sausage!
Thank you for pointing that out, I will edit the post. Allowing them to rise for about 20 minutes is a good idea.
Wide mouth jar – can you give me an approximate diameter? My husband got a lovely set of biscuit cutters in several sizes. I’ve tried hot dog buns before and they didn’t turn out very well, but am hoping to try these, once I know the size…
My best guess is that they are about 3+ inches across…I would have to get out a tape measure to be exact, but I think that’s pretty close. :)
I made them it the dough worked out beautifully but I guess I
didn’t roll it right now what do I do we will have rolls to eat
with dinner so I will have to practice not overlapping the dough just try to make it end to end not sure how to do it
but will practice I want to have my own business and these will
be great for my hotdogs just getting them rolled right will be the best thing. not sure will try next time
These turned out yummy and I made some changes to the recipe to veganise (olive oil instead of butter, oat milk instead of milk and sugar instead of honey). Sadly they came out too small for my sausages so I couldn’t eat them with those…. Saved as soup rolls though and will make them slightly bigger next time.
Does anyone eat their turkey dogs with guacamole and sliced red onion? They are so good this way. I try to buy the O M brand ones. I also love them with dill pickle, mustard and red onion.
I can’t wait to try these next time we have hot dogs.
Made hotdog buns today!!! They were absolutely wonderful! We loved them!