INCREDIBLE + EASY Mexican Sonoran Hot Dogs!

These Mexican or Sonoran Hot Dogs are literally the best hot dogs I've ever eaten! Continental Frankfurters are wrapped in bacon and then served in soft hot dog buns with two types of onion, tomato, pinto beans and a range of sauces. They're also ridiculously easy to make and great to feed a crowd for lunch or dinner! This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.

A Mexican or Sonoran hot dog features a bacon wrapped hot dog served in a bolillo style bun (steamed or toasted), topped with a variety of ingredients like pinto beans, tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, mayonnaise and mustard. The Sonoran hot dog is believed to have been first created in the 1980s in Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora in Mexico. Street vendors began wrapping hot dogs in bacon and cooking them on grills adding toppings that combined Mexican ingredients with the classic American hot dog. The Sonoran hot dog crossed the border into the southwestern United States to Arizona where it became a staple in cities like Tucson and Phoenix. And honestly Dear Reader, these are SO delicious that Mr NQN who is on a healthy eating kick devoured two for lunch every day for a week while I was testing this recipe - without a peep of complaint! Truly, these are the best hot dogs ever!

Tips For Making Mexican Sonoran Hot Dogs

1 - Mexican Sonoran hot dogs are best made with continental frankfurters/franks rather than the red skinned sausages. If red skinned ones are all you have that's fine, obviously just use those but to me, continental franks are much better tasting. Or you can use your favourite sausages too!

2 - You want a soft hotdog roll or bun for these. Some people use brioche but I think just the regular supermarket hotdog rolls from the instore bakery are the best as they are less sweet but still soft.

3 - This is best made with extra long streaky bacon rashers, around 28cm/11inches long weighing around 55g/2oz. This will wrap around the entire hotdog without the need for toothpicks to secure them. I found them at the Meat Emporium in Alexandria (not sponsored). You can also ask your butcher in advance to provide these for you.

4 - You can roast the bacon wrapped sausages in the oven or pan fry them. If you are making a lot of these I'd roast them in the oven and you can do this a bit ahead of time say 30 minutes. I like to briefly pan fry them in the frying pan to give them a bit of extra browning just before assembling. Just make sure to put the bacon wrapped frankfurts on parchment and collect the bacon fat to use to cook the onions, jalapenos and pinto beans. Or if you're feeling healthy cook these in olive oil instead of the bacon fat.

5 - You can find the jalapeno sauce at the supermarket. I used the brand El Pato and Yucateco and they were both good. Any green jalapeno salsa will work (even red jalapeno salsa works well).

6 - If you're making a big batch of these for a crowd I'd make a bulk lot of sausages in the oven 1 hour ahead of time and pre-make the pinto beans, onion and jalapenos and chop up the onion and tomato. Then 5 minutes before you want to serve them, brown the bacon wrapped sausages in a pan and assemble the hot dogs. Buying squeezy containers of the sauces helps too. I decant the jalapeno sauce into a small squeezy container.

Other Delicious Mexican Recipes To Serve With Mexican Hot Dogs

• BEST Guacamole Recipe
• Beef Barbacoa
• Esquites or Mexican Street Corn Salad
• Homemade Horchata

The day that I made these hot dogs was the day after that huge storm in Sydney last week. That night we saw the weather warnings and Mr NQN decided that he had to fortify our house. It's a Federation era house so it does have issues. He is not a hugely handy person but there's a lot you can do with a silicon sealant gun and cable ties and he sealed up all of the gaps finishing 5 minutes before the storm hit. It seemed to do the trick. However that night while I was in the middle of watching Black Doves the internet went down. He spent the rest of the night on the phone to our ISP IInet who said it was the NBN (for those outside Australia, it is the broadband internet system here which is not great honestly) and told us to wait. Also our immediate neighbours to our right all had no internet.

Mr NQN asked Vic, our neighbour to the left if their internet was still working. Vic said yes and offered to share their wifi which we gratefully accepted. While we could get internet on the ground floor of our house, it didn't reach upstairs. Vic and Mr NQN suggested bringing over the booster to widen the coverage so we could use internet upstairs which Vic helped us with.

Some people are givers and some people are takers. Givers are who I like hanging out with because I am a chronic giver and because takers will take until you have no more. And I felt like I had to right the balance with Vic and Nicki because they had shared their internet with us. I told Mr NQN that we had to give them something to say thank you. We usually give them desserts but I didn't have any prepared as I had been making these hot dogs. "I've only got these Mexican hot dogs! Is that weird?" I told Mr NQN. He looked at me seriously, "I am not going to give them hot dogs, it's WEIRD," he said shaking his head. I still maintain that these are so utterly delicious that it would cancel out any potential weirdness!

So tell me Dear Reader, are you a giver or a taker? Do you feel like you need to right the balance? Would you give hot dogs?

Mexican Sonoran Hot Dogs

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes

Serves: 6 people

• 6 continental frankfurters (60g/2ozs each)
• 6x 55g/2ozs extra long streaky bacon rashers (28cm/11inches long)
• 6 soft hotdog rolls
• 300g/10.6ozs or 1 extra large white or brown onion, peeled and sliced
• 6 jalapenos, topped and halved, seeds removed
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and diced
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 400g/14oz tin pinto beans, drained
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tomatoes
• 100g/3.5ozs white or brown onion, diced and soaked in water
• 1/2 avocado, cut into chunks (optional)
• Mayonnaise
• Mustard
• Tomato sauce / ketchup
• Jalapeno salsa

Step 1 - Take one rasher of bacon and wrap it around the frankfurt overlapping so that the bacon rasher is tucked up. Tuck in the end into the bacon and repeat with all of the sausages and bacon. You can do this beforehand and cover and keep in the fridge until you need to fry them.

Step 2a Frypan - Heat a large frying pan on medium heat and add the sausages. You shouldn't need any oil, let them cook and brown and cook each sausage turning minimally (turning too much can dislodge the bacon). I just turn 4 times so all sides get cooked. Cook them for 15-20 minutes. In the same pan if you have space add the onions (you may need to add 1 teaspoon of oil). Fry until browned and starting to caramelise. If there is room add the jalapenos skin side down or add these once the sausages or onion are cooked. Remove and set aside. Then add the garlic to the pan and 1 teaspoon oil and cook for 1 minute. Add the drained pinto beans, cumin and salt and saute on medium heat for 3-4 minutes until soft. Check for seasoning adding if needed with the onions and beans.

Step 2b Oven - place bacon wrapped sausages on a parchment lined tray. Preheat oven to 160C/320F fan forced and roast sausages for 20 minutes. I like to brown these off in the pan for a couple of minutes. Use the bacon fat collected to cook the onions and jalapenos in the frypan and then the pinto beans (see above).

Step 3 - Chop the top off the tomato and squeeze the seeds out and then dice the tomato and season with salt and pepper. Drain the diced onion of the water.

Step 4 - Cut a split down the centre of each bun and place in the microwave for 15 seconds just to warm them through. Place 1 tablespoon or 2 of pinto beans in the bun then top with bacon wrapped sausage. Add some chopped tomato, raw onion, cooked onion and avocado then squeeze mayonnaise, mustard, tomato sauce, jalapeno sauce on top. Finish with 2 halves of jalapeno per hot dog and serve!