Michigan Sauce for Camp Dogs
Upstate New York's hot dog sauce, cooked down over a fire in one pot while the dogs char on the grate.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 58
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- none
- 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
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 2 lb | 80/20; freeze flat at home so it thaws slowly in the cooler |
|---|---|---|
| Ketchup | 4 cups | one large squeeze bottle |
| Yellow onions | 2, chopped | hold back a handful raw for topping |
| Butter | 8 tbsp | |
| Cider vinegar | 8 tbsp | |
| Brown sugar | 8 tbsp | |
| Worcestershire sauce | 12 tbsp | |
| Brown mustard | 3 tbsp | plus more at the table |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Hot dogs and buns | 16 |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going and set the grate low. Put a deep pot or dutch oven over the hottest part.
- Brown the beef, breaking it up as it goes. Tip off the fat into a can or a foil pouch. Do not pour it into the fire.
- Add the chopped onion, ketchup, butter, vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire, and mustard. Stir until it looks like one thing.
- Slide the pot to the cooler edge of the grate and let it simmer. Stir every ten minutes and scrape the bottom.
- It is done when a spoon dragged through leaves a track for a second. Thirty minutes at least, an hour is better. Salt and pepper at the end.
- Grill the dogs over the coals while the sauce finishes. Load a bun, spoon the sauce over, top with raw onion and more mustard.
This is a cook-it-down sauce, not a recipe with a finish time. The ketchup carries sugar and acid already; the vinegar and brown sugar sharpen both ends so it does not read as warm ketchup. What actually takes time is water leaving the pot, and a fire gives you that for free while you do other things.
Simmer it at the edge of the grate, not over the coals. Sugar on a hot bottom scorches fast and the burn goes through the whole pot. Skim or pour off the beef fat before the liquid goes in, or the sauce breaks and slides off the dog instead of sitting on it. This one needs a cooler for the beef and butter, so it is a car-camping dinner, not a pack-in.
Packing
Beef frozen flat at the bottom of the cooler. Measure the vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire, and mustard into one screw-top jar at home so camp is two containers and a squeeze bottle. Butter in a small tub.
Variations
- Cook the sauce down at home and freeze it in a block. It doubles as a cooler ice pack and reheats in ten minutes.
- Skip the buns and spoon it over instant potato flakes or rice.
- A chopped chipotle or a spoon of chili powder takes it toward Coney territory.
https://thervatlas.com/food/recipe-of-the-week-julies-michigan-sauce