Best Hot Dogs: A Taste Test

By Raechel Conover, Cheapism.com

July is without doubt the month of the dog -- hot dogs, that is. The hot summer month plays host to the International Hot Dog Eating Contest, a July 4 tradition, and National Hot Dog Day on July 23. To pull everything under one umbrella, July is National Hot Dog Month. With so many hot dog celebrations coming up, you may be curious to know which hot dog will tickle your taste buds without leaving much of a scratch on your budget.

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We stopped off at a Kroger supermarket one day and picked up eight packs of inexpensive hot dogs: beef franks from Oscar Mayer, Ball Park, Nathan's Famous, plus two Kroger labels (Value and Simple Truth) and pork-based wieners from Oscar Mayer, Ball Park, and Eckrich. We rounded up seven hot dog tasters, grilled up samples of each, and asked for their assessments without identifying which dog was which.

Overall, the pork-based hot dogs, which contain turkey, chicken, and/or beef, bombed in comparison with the all-beef franks. Even before taking a single bite, several judges said their favorite hot dog was Nathan's Famous Beef Franks. But the perceived top dog unexpectedly loped into a distant second place, bested in our hot dog taste-off by Oscar Mayer Classic Beef Franks. In the pork-based category, panel members struggled to identify a "best" wiener and reluctantly awarded the title to Ball Park (Original) Franks.

The results seemed unrelated to price. Pork-based hot dogs are the cheapest, by far. One wiener from Oscar Mayer and Eckrich each cost just 19 cents, although the Ball Park version costs 31 cents. On the beef side of things, Kroger Value hot dogs were the cheapest at 31 cents each, while Nathan's Famous hit the high spot at 66 cents a serving. Oscar Mayer, Ball Park, and Kroger Simple Truth ranged in between, at 39 cents, 54 cents, and 64 cents a serving, respectively.

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Pork Hot Dogs. By the time the plates were empty, the judges had voiced very strong opposition to pork-based hot dogs. Even the most frugal of the bunch said he would never attempt to save money by buying pork hot dogs again. The common refrain: "Pork hot dogs are just gross." More specifically, our tasters said the "texture is all wrong" and the flavor, in general, is "off."

But we still had to rank the dogs. The results are as follows: Ball Park (Original) Franks took the lead, followed by Eckrich Franks as runner-up and the Oscar Mayer Classic Wiener in last place. One panelist who preferred the Ball Park brand over the rest liked the flavor and said the "okay" texture was better than some. Other judges described the texture as "mushy and weird," but that was the consensus about all the pork-based hot dogs. The Eckrich version earned even fewer compliments. About the best that was offered: "Taste is okay, nothing great and nothing terrible." Oscar Mayer fared the worst, with panelists using descriptive terms like "gross," bad aftertaste," and "overpowering pork flavor."

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Beef Hot Dogs. Beef hot dogs proved far more satisfying to our review panel's palates. The star in this category was Oscar Mayer Classic Beef Franks. Kroger Value Beef Hot Dogs and Nathan's Famous Beef Franks tied for second place, while Kroger Simple Truth Uncured Beef and Ball Park Beef Franks pulled in last. Our judges were surprised to learn that for half the price they could enjoy the best hot dog pick, Oscar Mayer, or the other second-place finisher, Kroger Value.

Tasters said the Oscar Mayer frank had a "good flavor," was appropriately salty, and showed off the "right texture with the right amount of juice." Reviews were mixed for the two runners-up. Nathan's Famous was said to convey a "good" or "great" flavor "but not a good aftertaste," and was "kind of tough." A couple of judges asserted that the flavor bordered on "artificial." The Kroger Value hot dog was described as "smoky" more often than not, and while our tasters were okay with that, the slightly "grainy" texture was a turn-off for one. "Fake baloney taste" sums up comments about the Ball Park Beef Franks, while "bland" and "average" was the collective opinion of the Kroger Simple Truth selection.

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