Dinner Party Diaries – Volume 2 Issue 17 – National Hot Dog Day Dinner Party
I don’t know about you, but I enjoy embracing the absurdity of random holidays. Many times, I use them as a fun excuse to lightly theme our regularly scheduled dinner party. While I wouldn’t say we go all out with decor or place settings, we do have fun trying to tie the menu to the theme. In that vein, I give you these National Hot Dog Day Dinner Party Menu Ideas. Although I expanded “hot dog” to include its cousins like smoked sausage and andouille links, I hope you’ll enjoy these recipes.
The Details
- Number of People: 6 – 8
- Serving Style: Appetizers and Dessert Family-Style, Entrée and Sides Buffet-Style
- Guest Arrival Time: 7:00-ish pm
The Menu
Appetizers
I thought that the appetizer space on the menu would be a good place to get creative with my hot dog theme. You can find the details in the respective recipes, but I definitely had some fun. For the Chili Cheese Dog Puffs, I actually used a grater to shred the hot dogs. To get the spiralized smoked sausage for the Mini Frittatas, I used the spiralizer attachment on my stand mixer. 🙂
Serve these delicious little bites with your choice of dipping sauces. Some of my favorites include: Sugar Free Honey Mustard Sauce, Dijon Mustard, my Tomato Jam, or Low Sugar Ketchup.
Mini Frittatas with Spiralized Smoked Sausage and Creme Fraiche
To top these little bites off, I also added some thin slices of Fresno pepper and fresh chives. Also, if you want a laugh, check out my method for spiralizing the smoked sausage. Fun and much easier than I feared.
Garlicky Spinach Cashew Dip (Dairy Free) with Veggie Dippers
While this recipe does not have hot dogs in it, I’m still going to suggest adding it to your repertoire. It’s a quick dip that you can serve with veggies (my recommendation), chips, pork rinds, pretzels, etc.
Entrée
Sous Vide Chicken Legs with a Mustard-Wine Pan Sauce
I found the inspiration recipe for this dish on Serious Eats. There were a few minor deviations, but that’s just par for the course around here when we’re not talking about recipe development in progress. I will also confess that I turned this delectable wine reduction sauce over to Scar (my other half), since his patience far exceeds mine.
Sides
For sides, I went for green veggies. I’ve been all about zucchini lately, so it’s been making frequent appearances around here and will likely continue to do so while it’s in season. My other obsession (that you may be catching onto) is Za’atar Seasoning. This one from Spice + Leaf is what I’ve been using. The other item that I used throughout this menu is this Spring Salt, which I’ve been loving both for cooking and for finishing.
Grilled Zucchini and Andouille Skewers
Even if you’re not having a party, I highly recommend that you make these skewers for dinner this week. They’re easy to construct, pretty quick to cook, get some nice earthy notes from the Za’atar, and have some nice crispy edges from the grill.
Super simple, but nice flavor. In a future iteration, I might add a squeeze of lemon just for grins.
Desserts
I was on a roll with the cashew dips, so we also had a Pomegranate-Vanilla Cashew Dip as well as a Maple-Vanilla Cashew Dip. I suggest pairing them with some sliced fruit. However, since the recipes for those both require a bit more work, I suggest my Blueberry Spice Cookies instead.
Pomegranate-Vanilla Cashew Dip
While I confess I’d been skeptical of this flavor combination, it actually turned out to be quite delicious. You’ve got sweetness along with a tinge of acidity from the pomegranate syrup, creaminess from the cashews, and rounded notes from the vanilla.
Maple-Vanilla Cashew Dip
I loved the flavor on this one too. However, I really want to find a use for it as an ingredient.
Suggested Wine Pairings
- White Wines
- Chardonnay
- Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay Reserve (2020)
- Chardonnay
- Red Wines
- Merlot
- Peju Province Winery Merlot (2018)
- Peju Province Winery 50/50 (2017)
- Merlot
National Hot Dog Day Recipe Ideas
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