Keep This Safety Rule In Mind When Grilling Your Hot Dogs

Most hot dogs are safe to eat straight out of the package, and while this makes them an extremely convenient cookout staple, it also makes some people a little lax when it comes to food safety. Regardless of whether they're raw or simply cold, you should never leave them out at room temperature and assume they don't have any harmful microorganisms.

According to the USDA, 40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit is a "danger zone" for both raw and cooked food. At these temperatures, everything from mold to bacteria thrives and multiplies rapidly, swiftly infecting meat and potentially causing a foodborne illness disaster. While there's nothing wrong with leaving a package out while you're actively grilling, it's around the two hour mark that things can go wrong and you may need to consider tossing them out. This is why, despite being fully cooked most of the time, you still need to bring a hot dog's interior temperature to above 140 degrees Fahrenheit to guarantee their safety.

Keep in mind that since hot dogs are generally less than an inch or two thick, the most delicious ways to cook them usually employ high heat. This helps strike the perfect balance of getting a crispy skin while still killing off any harmful pathogens. Even if your wieners are straight from the fridge, you shouldn't have any problem keeping them safe and delicious with whatever cooking method you choose.

Keeping hot dogs food safe, even after you cook them through, doesn't mean you have to sacrifice texture or flavor. The sheer popularity of this food has spurred tons of ingenious innovations, from dedicated machines to simple techniques that only improve their taste.

One reason street cart hot dogs taste so good is their long soaks in seasoned liquids. Over time, the same broth, beer, or water cooks boiled them in become suffused with tons of taste which creates a sort of post-cook marinade for the wieners. Not only is this a fairly hands-off cooking method that seasons the meat with little effort, but it's also a great way to guarantee they stay at a food safe temperature. If you're looking to keep some hot dogs warm, ready, and, above all, microbe-free, you should consider breaking out the slow cooker and mixing together some beer, stock, and aromatics like onions and garlic to keep them even tastier over time.

If you prefer crispy hot dogs over the plump ones you get from boiling, there are plenty of hot dog rollers for you to splurge on. The dry heat combined with constant rotations keep them from desiccating while simultaneously preserving crispy outsides, and all you need is an outlet to plug one into. Conversely, if you don't want to invest in this dedicated setup, turn your oven on low, roughly around 200 degrees Fahrenheit or even a bit lower, and leave your cooked hot dogs on a tray.