Hot Dog Hush Puppies
Mini hot dogs dipped into a hush puppy batter and deep fried until crispy to form flavorful mini corn dogs! A corn dog and hush puppy batter are pretty similar. the main difference is adding the onion and spices. The other main difference is the ratio – a corn dog is usually 1:1 cornmeal and flour, whereas the hush puppy can range but is usually 2:1, with more cornmeal than flour, and usually a thicker grind.
The inspiration for this recipe
I have been doing a series on Instagram called “is it a corn dog?” where I make things that are corn-dog adjacent and pose the titular question to my audience. I have done all sorts of stuff, like this churro dog, hot dog tamale, and a hot dog wrapped in a corn tortilla. They don’t all have corn, because a Korean corn dog does not have any corn in it. Generally I think the things I make pass the corn dog test. These hot dog hush puppies are the closest thing to a true corndog that I have made so far.
Make the hush puppy batter
Start with cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cayenne, and smoked paprika in the bowl. Then add minced onion, jalapeno, and garlic.
Then the wet ingredients, milk and egg. Stir to combine.
Coat the mini hot dogs in the hush puppy batter
I dusted the hot dogs in a light coating of flour, then added them to the hush puppy mixture, then drop them into the fryer. It is a little tricky to do this whole process at first, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly.
I fried these in batches of 5-7 and was able to do all 25 in 4 batches.
Sauce for the hot dog hush puppies
The sauce is just mayo, relish, mustard, and sriracha. You could use a different hot sauce, or a mixture of hot sauce and ketchup if you want.
Serving the hot dog hush puppies
I like to just put them all in a pile and dig in. You could also just leave them right on the cooling rack. Especially if it is informal and people want to snack on them right out of the fryer.
Twists on this recipe
You could leave out the jalapenos in this if you want. Or could do it with serrano peppers if you wanted a little more kick. Serve with any sauce you want really. You could also batter and fry a full sized hot dog in this mixture on a stick for the classic corn dog vibe.
Hot Dog Hush Puppies
Equipment
Ingredients
Sauce
- 1 cup mayo
- 1/4 cup sweet relish
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons sriracha or your favorite hot sauce
Hush puppies
- 1 cup medium grind cornmeal
- 1/2 cup flour plus more for dusting the dogs
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder
- 1/2 a medium sized onion minced
- 2 jalapenos minced
- 1 clove garlic grated
- 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
- 1 egg beaten
- 25 mini hot dogs
- oil for frying
Instructions
Sauce
- Mix all the sauce ingredients and store in the fridge until ready to use.
Hush Puppies
- Preheat frying oil to 350
- Combine the cornmeal, flower, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, paprika, ad cayenne in a large bowl. Stir.
- Add the onion, jalapeno, garlic, milk, and egg and stir until fully mixed.
- put the dusting flour in a shallow bowl. Add about 5 of the mini hot dogs to the flour and roll them around.
- Shake all the excess flour off as good as you can, then transfer to the cornmeal mix.
- One by one, use a spoon to get a hot dog out of the batter so that it is still fully coated, and drop it into the hot oil. This is the trickiest part of the recipe but I quickly got the hang of it after the first few.
- While the first 5 are frying, you can start dusting the next batch with flour and add them to the cornmeal. Make sure to rotate the hot dogs in the hot oil as they cook so they brown evenly.
- When they are nicely golden brown, transfer to a drying rack and sprinkle with some salt.
- Serve with the sauce.