Pizza Style Hot Dogs

Are you the type, like my family, where every couple of weeks you kind of have a typical dinner menu? There seems to be a bit of consistency with my family where every couple of weeks we are making homemade pizzas, or making some sort of riff on hot dogs. With that said, this was one of those weeks. I made a handful of pizzas for the kids, and a couple of days later we were eating Nueske’s smoked wieners. Both of these yielded some leftovers, and that’s when the idea sparked to do a take on a pizza style hot dog! Was this good? Yes, it was pretty darn good and underneath the melted cheese and sauce was this wonderful (and I think one of the best) smoked wiener.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients:

• 1 cooked wiener, or hot dog, I use Nueske’s.
• 6 slices of pepperoni
• 1 hot dog bun
• 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup pizza sauce
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning

This is pretty simple. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Add the wiener to the bun, and tuck in three slices of pepperoni on each side of the wiener. Place the wiener and bun onto a baking sheet, and place in the oven, just to warm up the wiener, and slightly crisp up the bun and pepperoni.  Crisping up the bun holds well with the melted cheese and sauce.

When the bun is slightly toasted, about 4-6 minutes, remove it from the oven, and top with the mozzarella cheese, the sauce, and top with the Italian seasoning.

Place this bag into the oven, and bake until the cheese is nice and melted. Once melted, remove from the oven, and get ready for an adventure.

Your first bite is quite the surprise! You get the slightly crunch from the bun, almost like a nice and crisp pizza crust, then the common flavors of pizza, and then that awesome snap of the Nueske’s wiener. Is this thing worth making?

ABSOLUTELY! Would I make this again? OF COURSE. This pizza style hot dog kind of blew my mind, and to me, that’s always a great thing. So the next time you have any pizza leftovers, and some wieners or hot dogs in the refrigerator, give this one a shot. Hope you enjoy, and have a great 4th of July!