Hot Dog Burnt Ends Recipe

How to cook hot dog burnt ends in the oven is here. Sticky sweet caramelized wieners with barbecue sauce and brown sugar are the best appetizer. If you love chuck roast burnt ends these will be an even bigger hit with your kids!

Hot Dog Burnt Ends

It is by far better if your packages are already thawed or fresh. If you are in a pinch though we do share how to cook frozen hot dogs here. You just need to do enough to defrost the insides and then follow the instructions with our dry rub and sauce below. I love Hebrew National with a bit more of a casing but Oscar Meyers works too.

If you have never made what they call burnt ends they aren’t really burned at all. I guess the reason they say this is that you get whatever meat you’re using a really deep, somewhat crispy outside. Paired with your sauce that begins to caramelize after a while they may look overdone but OH MY they aren’t.

Most of the time when you hear of this it is made with beef of some kind, cut into large bite size pieces. This one was more thinking outside of the box with something everyone including kids would love. You could certainly do the same thing but place your pan on your grill or Traeger. Smoked is fabulous too but will take a lot more time.

We are going to explain how it’s done baked in the oven instead. This way you can certainly make them year round, alone or as Beans and Weenies, even when it’s snowing outside and you aren’t about to head out there. 😉 You’re going to need to get out;

Ingredient Notes

• 2 packages of hot dogs
  • you could certainly make just 1 if you wanted, just half everything if you do
  • hot dog pieces should be 1/3 of the dog or large bite size pieces
• 1/4 c yellow mustard is optional but will really make the taste more bold
• Dark brown sugar not packed when measured out will make it a bit sweet
• Your favorite barbecue sauce bottled with a bit of a kick or spicy is best, or homemade works
• You will want a bit of butter or dairy free alternative if you must
• 1 tsp liquid smoke is a nice touch to make a deeper flavor

We have shared a lot of dry rub recipes on our site, this is the latest. If you wanted to make it spicy just add 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes into the mix.

Hot Dog dry rub

• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 2 tsp paprika
• Onion powder and garlic powder
• Dry mustard
• Salt and pepper

Yes we have made air fryer hot dogs before too. They turn out great. If you wanted to attempt this in there you could. It wouldn’t take as long but it will get crispy fast so you’ll have to keep an eye on it. You will use the same initial sauce and then dry rub after they are cooked such as;

with frozen hot dogs

You can with a few tweaks to these steps. If yours are hard to begin with you should get them to tender with our air fryer frozen hot dogs directions until they start to caramelize. Decrease timing by 2 minutes or so because you’ll continue to cook with sauce later.

in Oven

We will explain how to do this step by step on a baking sheet below in the recipe card. It is our favorite method of all so we lead with this but have other options below too.

in a Smoker

You can smoked hot dog burnt ends like this with wood chips and a grill grate on top. You could use a cast iron skillet over medium high heat to decrease the initial timing to closer to 25 minutes. To get that deeper flavor with thicker sauce and crisp you would need to pop that into the oven at the end though.

in Air Fryer

1. Preheat air fryer to 370 degrees F for 5 minutes
2. Brush the hot dogs with mustard & liquid smoke mixed together. Then roll in our dry rub mixture.
3. Spray air fryer basket with non stick spray and lay coated dogs inside for 5 minutes
4. Remove and cut into large chunks, put into a bowl
5. In a bowl mix together brown sugar, bbq sauce and butter.
6. Pour mixture on top of dogs and toss to coat
7. Put back into air fryer for 3-5 minutes depending on how crispy you want them to be, shake basket halfway thru. Remove the hot dogs and enjoy immediately

Sometimes this recipe is called poor man’s burnt ends whatever that means. I guess because you can use something inexpensive, like even pork belly and add all these flavors that the taste is like gourmet.

When you serve and enjoy this all you really need are toothpicks. A great addition to a buffet with a large gathering for sure. Always a huge hit and never lasts long around here.

Of course if you have a sweet rub of your own used on your smoked brisket maybe then by all means try that instead but ours is MMmmm. Same is used with brisket burnt ends or sometimes I’ll toss it with leftover steak to transform into a new meal. You can print recipe below or just come back time and time again.