Daily Favorites: Chicago-Style Hot Dogs

Okay, this doesn't have everything that you can get on a Chicago dog. Let's get into it. 

A Chicago-style hot dog with everything on it has seven toppings: 

1. mustard

2. onion

3. relish

4. sport peppers

5. tomato

6. pickle spear

7. celery salt

I hate tomatoes and when I lived in Chicago would order my dogs as "everything except tomato." So right away, you know I'm not putting tomato on this. Now pickle spear is pretty redundant because we already have pickle relish. When you're in the mood for it, the pickle spear can be tasty, but I chose to omit it here. So we're down to five toppings. I looked long and hard for sport peppers but since I'm not near Chicago, my store didn't have them. I have substituted hot cherry peppers as a close equivalent. I arranged them to mimic the placement of the tomatoes, so that seems like a win-win. I did find celery salt as well. But the most important things to have on a hot dog (in my opinion) are mustard, onion and relish. As long as you've got that trinity, you're set. Oh yeah, and no ketchup. 

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All of the toppings are either 5 or 10 calories, even the relish. So I'll estimate 50 for all the toppings across three hot dogs. 

The lowest calorie bun I could find in my store was 130 cals.  

There's a ton of variation in hot dog calories. A lot of them were 170 or so but I saw some as high as 240. 

I bought two kinds of hot dogs: Ball Park bun-length at 130 and Oscar Mayer lean beef at 60. 

The lean beef isn't quite as good as the Ball Park but was about 95% as good. I'll happily buy them again. 

Today, I had two lean beef and one Ball Park for 250 cals from dogs, 390 from buns, and 50 from toppings. So 690 for today's lunch of three hot dogs. 

Apparently, Aldi has 100-calorie buns. So if I got those and stuck to the lean beef, I could have 3 hot dogs for 530 cals. (300 + 180 + 50)

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Hot dogs are great. Definitely don't feel like "I'm on a diet" when I'm having 3 hot dogs for lunch. Which is really the whole point of this. Make smart choices that create a sustainable lifestyle. Find ways to incorporate my favorite foods so I'm never feeling deprived while still losing weight. 

My normal hot dog of mustard, onion, relish is pretty close to what I had today already. The celery salt adds a little flavor and the peppers are nice too, but both are optional. 

Quick, easy, tasty lunch that feels like summer. 

My kids like hot dogs too. Except in a cruel twist of fate, they only put ketchup on theirs.