I love the push cart hot dogs, mainly because of the onions they serve on top...so I mixed and matched many different ingredients until I came up with the perfect combination for this recipe! This tastes just like the kind of onions I often would get from my favorite hot dog stands!

Hot Dog Onions

corn oil

extra large onion, thinly sliced

hot pepper sauce (such as Frank's RedHot®)

mustard

white sugar

chili powder

salt

black pepper

cayenne pepper

water

tomato paste

Heat the corn oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the hot sauce, yellow mustard, sugar, chili powder, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low, and continue to cook for about 5 minutes. Stir in the water and tomato paste; simmer until liquid has reduced, about 20 minutes.


I used EVOO instead of corn oil and I cut back just a touch on the salt. The recipe didn't state what kind of onion to use, I made a judgement call and used an extra large sweet onion. That was the only change I made in this recipe. We had these piled on top of barbequed kielbasa. NO leftovers. This was absolutely fantastic.

FANTASTIC! If I could give this 10 stars, I would! The flavors of these onions are awesome...spicy, tangy and sweet. A perfect compliment to a hot dog. Hubby said he's gonna ask for these every time I make hot dogs, lol. Made exactly as written. Definate keeper~YUM! Thanks for sharing. :)

So good!  Next time I'll rough-chop the onion as I thought the slices where a bit challenging to eat, altho they look great on the hot dog.  I cut back on the salt, plus the hot sauce and cayenne as we are wimpy with hot foods altho we like spicy flavors. (05.20.12; 03.12.17)

Though it's not a recipie I personally would try (a bit spicy for me) My husband LOVED these! He made an egg sandwich and put the hotdog onions ontop and said they are better than the family recipie for peppers! lol!

I put this on brats. Love onions, love these X 10.  I'm thinking on hamburgers or maybe  in hamburgers, both?  My hot sauce was HOT so this had a nice burn. Thanks!

My husband and I loved these onions!  A great spicy topping for a hot dog!

Holy spiciness! I admit that I'm a spice whimp but O....M....G were these HOT! I could not get past 1 bite &amp; my eyes were watering, lips were burning. Yes, I followed the recipe, no I didn't make any mistake in measurements. I really want to try more but I'm skeered :)  Really hard to rate on just 1 bite so I'll go in the middle.

Loooved these onions! Spicy and tangy, but not overwhelming. My 4 year old was begging for hot dogs tonight, and since I kept seeing these being raved about on the Buzz, I felt like I HAD to try them. Yum!! A nice way to make an ordinary hot dog a little more fun and interesting. Thanks for the recipe, Lillian!

I made these onions according to the recipe.  They are wonderfully spicy.  I enjoyed them with saurkrout on a boiled hotdog.  Thank you LilLian for sharing this simple tasty recipe.

Pretty good!  I've never had onions from a NYC hot dog stand, so I have nothing to compare these to, but I'm confident Lillian hit the nail on the head. :)  I'm generally not a fan of grilled onions, but these weren't bad at all. My hubs commented that the spices added a nice kick. To add pizzaz to our weeknight dinner, I purchased poppyseed hot dog buns and Vienna all-beef hot dogs (the "official" Chicago dog of choice). Served with french fries on the side and cream sodas to cure the heartburn (lol), this was a fun, no fuss meal. Thanks Lillian! :-)

Loved this recipe!  Christina (fellow AR buzzer) raves about these onions, so I had to try them.  They are every bit as delicious as she recommends!  We really liked the zip that the Frank's RedHot Sauce(R) adds to these onions.  Very easy to put together and they add so much flavor to the dogs.  Thanks Lillian for sharing this recipe.  Can't wait to try them on brats and hamburgers.

My wife is not fond of sauteed onion with sauce on her hotdog but this one  She approved it and put on her hotdog after she tasted it...  I am keeping this and do it again for family gathering coming up soon....

I can't say I've ever eaten a wiener from the hot dog cart w/out enjoying a few hoppy beverages first, so I really don't have anything to, objectively, compare these hot dog onions to.  That being said, these are fantastic!  I made them this evening to top grilled hot dogs and both Mr. LTH and I really enjoyed them (well, Mr. Sissypants did deem them a little "hot", but that's just because he saw me add the Red Hot)!  I stayed true to the recipe w/the exception of subbing EVOO for corn oil (no corn oil) and eliminating the black pepper (gross).  These will be a camping staple in the LTH world this summer.  THANKS for the great unique recipe, Lillian!!

Made this a long time ago when Lillian posted it on another site.  So good!  I have actually made them quite a bit since then cause I don't have a hot dog without them ;)  They are perfectly sweet with some zing from the mustard.  Thanks again!

Okay my guess is that this recipe gets 5 stars but did not use Frank's Hot sauce, I used another and it was too hot.  I am posting so that others don't make the same mistake I did.  Frank's Hot sauce has a SHU (heat) rating of only 450 while Tabasco scores 700.  Dave's Insanity Sauce score 175,000 and the list I found on line goes to 16,000,000!  I will be modifying my first batch and will make again.  LOVE this type of sauce!  Thank you for posting.

Wow, these are really hot! However, the underlying flavor was good and I liked the texture of the onions. The person I made them for loves hot food and I think will really like these on a hotdog. I never quite tried anything like this, interesting recipe.

Great! I doubled up on the ingredients because it seemed quite dry... maybe my onion was just a little bit too large for the recipe... It turned out fabulous!

Really liked the kick the seasoning gave the hot dog!

So good. Even dogs in a blanket stand up and taste better with the onions.

I use EVOO. Sometimes I might make very slight adjustments, I think it depends on the onions I use. This recipe is absolutely fantastic. It's great on so many other things, just think outside the box.

Wow.  What a new and fun way to eat brats.

I left out the black and cayenne pepper and added a teaspoon of brown sugar. I don't like food so hot that it feels like your mouth is on fire. These adjustments gave the recipe just the right amount of warmth for my taste. Thanks for this keeper!!!

yum!! I fry in butter and use sriracha, but the recipe is solid!!

I've never had the type of onions this recipe is trying to recreate, so I can't speak for how close a representation it is. We liked these ok, not sure if they're a make-again or not. If I do, I'll double the mustard and halve the oil. Thanks for sharing!

Lord have mercy, these were SO GOOD!  I'm kicking myself for not having made these earlier!  Thank you so much for recipe!

These were super good on top of smoked sausages. Will be making these every time we have dogs ;)

I love this recipe, I never thought making hotdogs this awesome could be so easy. My husband asks for them all the time. I do add some brown sugar and a little more white sugar to really get that sweet spicy factor:-)

Excellent recipe!  I've been looking for a good hot dog onion recipe for a while and this one is great.  I  just made for the first time today.  I didn't have the Frank's brand and substituted the Red Tabasco instead.  I did 10 shakes.  It's is just right for heat and flavor.  Otherwise,  I followed the recipe as given.

Very good base recipe to follow.  I did make some modifications according to what I had available and it came out awesome both times.  My husband used to like only raw onion or green onions on his hot dogs.  Now he only wants these hot dog onions.

Loved it!!!! Better than store bought!!! I add a smidgen of jalapeño. Great recipe.

I made this according to the directions.  It was just ok.

Will definitely make this again, but may try dicing the onions next time. Excellent flavor. I did use olive oil instead of cooking oil.

This was delicious!  I left out the cayenne pepper because I was afraid it would be too spicy.  It was spicy even without it, but tolerable for me (a proclaimed spice wimp).  Really tasty though - we didn't have tomato paste, so we used condensed tomato soup and it seemed to work out just as well!  Thanks!

This is delicious! It was fast and easy to make. It is slightly hot though. If you don’t want as much of a kick I suggest putting less hot sauce cayenne and chili powder then the recipe calls for.

Excellent recipe. Did not use the Cayenne as it was hot enough for us with just the chili powder. Fantastic, delicious and easy!

Made it for hubby, who loves onion sauce on his hot dogs. This was great! A tad spicy for our family, but easily resolved by doubling the onions, adding a touch more sugar and water, then just cooking it down more. My hubs &amp; sons kept repeating how good it was. Thank you for a great recipe. Now I don't need to ever buy the jarred sauce again. :-)

This is a nice recipe in order to enhance the flavor of the onions, but these onions prepared as such is as a meal in itself with all of the extra condiments utilized. This is alright for a small helping, but to expand the size is to expand the luxurious ingredients with the addition of the lavish calories heaped upon a simple vegetable.

My wife is not allowed to eat meat because of her kidney disease. However, this recipe looked so good to her, she decided to have it with a hotdog without the dog.

I thought this was great. Great flavor, very tomato-y, and a nice understated heat. I think you could get away with adding a touch more cayenne and not be offended. I took the advice of another reviewer and chopped the onions instead of slicing them in order to make it easier to use as a topping for hot dogs. Love it! Will make again.

Awesome.  My wife eats them on a roll without the hot dog. So good.

Made this over a dozen times,. Tried it with different  hot sauces. usually come back to the original which is not to say the others aren't good. This recipe is very versatile,  Bottom line, It ROCKS!

I really liked these, but not so much for my hubs. Although, it was a nice change. We like ours with some texture so I topped it with crushed chips.

Excellent topping for hotdogs and polish sausage. I have been looking for something like this for quite awhile.

Turned a ho-hum lunch into a yum-yum lunch!  Delicious!

Too many ingredients and complicated.My version is  sweet Alicia onion slices and chopped  and sautéed in button and garlic or garlic butter or  salt … then just add your favorable honey barbecue sauces and marinate until soft onions and spread on dog…no other ingredients needed

Blew my husband’s eyeballs out - anything that makes him cry from the spicy heat factor is perfect!

Best sauce I've ever had on a hot dog. Made a few modifications, used spaghetti sauce instead of tomato paste and used less water, and cajun seasoning instead of chili powder. Fantastic!

Delicious! Best hot dog onion recipe I’ve made yet. A little spicy, and I like spicy food. Next time I will cut the cayenne pepper in half.

These are very hot onions. My husband liked them but if I make again I will add only 1/8 teaspoon or less of the cayanne pepper.

Absolutely on the $ (less the cayenne!). While experimenting I sweated the onions, added a touch of smoked paprika and Peter Lugers steak sauce. Killer!

Excellent recipe—delicious. I followed the recipe exactly. A little zing from the hot sauce and cayenne pepper. It took me about 10 minutes to soften the onion, but other timing worked for me. Thank you.

hot dog onions

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total: 40 minutes

Servings: 4

Author : Lillian

Ingredients

Instructions

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