Chili Dog Pot
Hot dogs and a spiced meat sauce, built from a shelf-stable spice bag and one pot at the fire.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Beef hot dogs | 8 | cooler item, but they hold for days |
|---|---|---|
| Hot dog buns | 8 | pack in a hard-sided bin or they arrive flat |
| Ground beef | 1 lb | freeze it solid; it thaws on the drive |
| Tomato paste | 1 can (6 oz) | |
| Water | 1 cup | |
| Yellow mustard | 1 tbsp | packets from a deli work fine |
| Worcestershire sauce | 1 tsp | |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Chili powder | 2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Celery seed | 1/2 tsp | |
| Ground cumin | 1/2 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/4 tsp | |
| Mild cheddar | 1/4 lb | a block grates better in camp than pre-shredded melts |
| Onion | 1 | or skip it and lean on the dried onion in the sauce |
Method
- Set a pot over the fire or stove and brown the ground beef, breaking it up as it goes. Pour off the fat into a spare can, not onto the ground.
- Add the tomato paste, a cup of water, the mustard, the Worcestershire, and the whole spice bag. Stir until the paste dissolves.
- Leave it uncovered at a low simmer for 30 minutes, stirring when you walk past. It should thicken to a spoonable sauce, not a soup.
The spice bag is the whole reason this works in camp. Nine small containers of seasoning is nine chances to forget one, so they get combined at the kitchen table and arrive as a single pour.
Tomato paste rather than sauce is deliberate. It ships in a small can, needs no refrigeration until opened, and the one cup of water you add back is water you control — so the sauce thickens on schedule instead of boiling down for an hour over a fire you would rather be eating next to. The 30-minute simmer is not optional; that is where the dried onion rehydrates and the chili powder stops tasting raw.
This one stays car-camping. Hot dogs, ground beef, and cheese all need a cooler, and there is no honest way to backpack it.
Packing
Measure the sugar, dried onion, chili powder, salt, celery seed, cumin, and pepper into one small zip bag at home. Beef, dogs, and cheese live in the cooler; everything else rides in a bin.
Variations
- Swap the ground beef for a pouch of cooked lentils and skip the browning step. Simmer the sauce 15 minutes instead of 30.
- No buns left? Spoon the sauce over instant potato flakes and call it dinner.
- A can of drained pinto beans stretches the sauce to twelve dogs.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/aw_chili_dogs-2187.asp