We Taste-Tested 13 Brands of Beef Hot Dogs—Here Are Our Favorites

Hot dogs are a staple of summertime cookouts: There’s minimal prep required, they’re easy to cook, and they’re a guaranteed crowdpleaser. All you need are buns, condiments, toppings, and, of course, the hot dogs. With so many hot dogs to choose from at the grocery store, it’s difficult to know which are worth buying. Luckily for you, we’ve done the hard work.

To find the very best franks, we taste-tested 13 different brands of uncured beef hot dogs you’re likely to find at your local grocery store. We simmered the hot dogs in water, sliced them up, then ate them plain in random order without knowing which hot dog brand was which. After tasting our way through 13 different hot dogs, we tabulated the results and crowned an overall winner we’d be happy to grill at our own cookouts. We also found a few runners up that would be welcome on our grills. 

The Criteria

A truly great hot dog should be tender, juicy, and snappy. It should be meaty, fatty, and savory, but shouldn’t be excessively salty or greasy. While a touch of sweetness is welcome, a hot dog should not be overly sweet: There should only be enough sugar to balance the other flavorings. In the words of our editorial director, Daniel, hot dogs should have “a balanced spice profile that doesn’t lean too far in any one direction.” It shouldn’t be too garlicky or oniony, and should hang out in a sweet spot where all those flavors mingle together. Hot dogs can be lightly smoky, but should not taste like liquid smoke. They should also not be hot pink; rather, they should have the natural brownish-red hue of meat. The skin should have a nice bite to it, but it shouldn’t be tough or chewy. 

“While toppings are one of the great joys of hot dogs, an excellent hot dog could be eaten in a bun alone,” our associate visuals director, Amanda, says. (As for Daniel: “They should pair perfectly with mustard above all else.” And, yes, he’s throwing a little shade at the ketchup crowd.)

Overall Winner

Boar’s Head Uncured Beef Frankfurters

“Good classic flavor,” Daniel wrote. “There’s some snap here. This is the first one where the casing texture got my attention.” Like Daniel, everyone else commented on how much they enjoyed the hot dog’s texture. Our senior social media editor, Kelli, appreciated its “decent snap,” and Amanda liked that it was “savory but not super salty.” These hot dogs were tender and juicy, with just the right amount of bite.

Runners-Up

• Nathan’s Famous Skinless Beef Franks
• Kirkland Signature Beef Hot Dogs
• Teton Ranch Bun-Length Uncured Beef Hot Dogs

Though none of the brands we tasted were quite as good as our winner, all of our tasters liked the hot dogs from each of these brands and would be happy to serve them at a backyard barbecue. While I found Nathan’s Famous Skinless Beef Franks a little too salty, other tasters enjoyed the hot dogs and thought they were balanced. Daniel, in particular, liked that the hot dogs were “fatty and rich in a good way.” 

Amanda thought the Kirkland Signature Beef Hot Dogs were appropriately “hot dog-y,” and both Kelli and I liked how juicy these were. These hot dogs had a subtle hint of liquid smoke, which Daniel didn’t care for, but he ultimately thought these were fine.

The Teton Ranch Bun-Length Uncured Beef Hot Dogs did not have the snap tasters wanted, but all the editors agreed they had good flavor and tasted like classic hot dogs, with a subtle smokiness that didn’t come across as unpleasant or artificial. 

The Contenders

• 365 Organic Uncured Grass-Fed Hot Dogs
• Applegate Naturals The Great Organic Beef Hot Dog
• Ball Park Uncured Beef Hot Dogs
• Best’s Bun Size Beef Frankfurters
• Boar’s Head Uncured Beef Frankfurters
• Fork in the Road Honest Dogs
• Hebrew National Beef Franks
• Kirkland Signature Beef Hot Dogs
• Nathan’s Famous Skinless Beef Franks
• Nature’s Promise Organic Uncured Grass-Fed Hot Dogs
• Oscar Mayer Classic Beef Franks Hot Dogs
• Sabrett Skinless Beef Frankfurters Bun Size
• Teton Ranch Bun-Length Uncured Beef Hot Dogs

In Conclusion

Beef is the main ingredient in all of the hot dogs we tasted. They all also contain water, salt, and spices, with garlic, onion, and paprika as the most common seasonings. Many have sweeteners (typically corn syrup, dextrose, or sorbitol) and preservatives, stabilizers, or acidulants that are added to maintain the hot dogs’ texture, color, and flavor, such as sodium diacetate, sodium ascorbate, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate, and sodium lactate, among many others. Sodium nitrite is a salt used to prepare charcuterie and cured meats. According to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, sodium nitrite contributes a “sharp, piquant flavor,” while also extending the meat’s shelf life and minimizing the risk of harmful bacteria like Clostridium botulinum from growing. 

Our winner, Boar’s Head, has just seven ingredients listed on the package: beef, water, salt, cultured celery powder, natural flavor, paprika, sea salt, and a sheep casing. Of all the brands we tried, it has the fewest ingredients. It is also the only brand that uses animal casing for its hot dogs, giving their sausages a superior snap. (Using animal intestines to encase sausages is a feature of traditional sausage making that  results in snappier sausages, which, as Daniel tells me, “isn’t an insignificant quality for a hot dog.”) Though hot dogs from Boar’s Head do not contain added sodium nitrite, they are made with cultured celery powder, which contains naturally occurring nitrates and nitrites.

Overall, our editors enjoyed most of the hot dogs we tasted, and did not have a clear preference for sausages made with or without nitrites and other additives. Two of our three runners-up— Nathan’s Famous Skinless Beef Franks and Kirkland Signature Beef Hot Dogs—are made with plenty of additives and preservatives, and our tasters still enjoyed those. Our tasters generally preferred hot dogs that did not have an overt smoke flavoring. However, it can be hard to spot artificial smoke flavoring just by looking at the ingredients, since brands may use the umbrella term “flavoring” without specifying what kind of flavoring.

Our Testing Methodology

All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill our tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.