Loyal viewers might remember this classic gif of my chili cheese dog from five years ago. I put this on my cravings list about two months ago and then realized that I could try and work it into this series instead of saving it for a cheat meal.
The key to making it work was finding the 60-calorie lean beef hot dogs. The entire can of Wolf Brand no bean chili is over 600 calories, but there's enough in the can for 6 hot dogs.
So 130 for bun + 60 for dog + 100 for chili + 60 for cheese = 350 for a chili cheese dog. 2 of these and that's a solid lunch.
Which I did. And it was delicious.
But I thought to myself, what really makes this good is the chili, the cheese and the hot dog. If I took out the buns, I could have more of the good stuff.
So I made this dish a second way for dinner:
It's hard to see, but there are three beef hot dogs under there, split open. Once I topped it with chili, onion and cheese, I put it under the broiler on low for a few minutes. Didn't take long to melt the cheese.
Three dogs at 180 + three servings of chili at 300 + 220 of cheese. We've kept the cals at 700 while increasing the number of hot dogs from 2 to 3.
This is the way to go.
It ate on the plate like enchiladas. More saucy, more meaty, more cheesy. I added cayenne pepper and Crystal hot sauce to the chili to give it a little heat.
Removing the buns was a revelation for this dish. It took it from good to great. I could even add a little diced, charred poblano, but I wouldn't want to add too many more ingredients and distract from what's working so well.
A good healthy solution for many recipes is to remove the bun/bread/tortilla and just turn the dish into a bowl or eat it on a plate. This is the first time that it vastly improved the taste of the dish.
