A bagel dog is a hot dog wrapped securely in the type of dough used to make bagels. Bagels are disc-shaped buns that have a hole in the center and that are boiled before baking. The dough in a bagel dog, however, is rolled out and wrapped around the dog before cooking. Occasionally a sausage link can replace the hot dog if the cook desires.
Commercially available bagel dogs are sometimes fully encased in the dough, while homemade versions leave the ends of the dog free. The dough is baked to a golden brown, and extras that can withstand oven heat, like poppy seeds, often end up in the dough as well. Recipes for homemade bagel dogs sometimes use ready-made biscuit or bread dough as a shortcut.
Bagel dogs are an informal, casual food, and they would not be served in an elegant restaurant or at a dinner party. In line with its reputation as a “fun” food, a bagel dog is a hand-held food, eaten without utensils. Because the bagel dough wrapping serves as a sort of handle, condiments like ketchup and relish can’t go on the outside of the bagel dog without smearing over the eater’s hand. An alternative option for those who want condiments is dipping the bagel dog into ketchup and mustard, and using those as a sort of glue to hold chopped onions or relish that the eater places on the dog for each bite.
Premade bagel dogs, like other store-bought, precooked foods, can have preservatives and other ingredients that consumers might not want. Plenty of recipes for homemade bagel dogs exist, allowing cooks to make the dough from scratch and choose nitrite-free hot dogs if they prefer. The casing of whatever meat a cook uses must be edible. While hot dog casings are usually edible, sausage casings, should the cook want to substitute that, sometimes aren’t.
Homemade bagel dogs that use bagel dough are boiled before going in the oven. Cooking time is relatively fast at about 35 minutes or so. If using sausage, cooks should use either precooked sausage or meat that they know will cook properly within that time period.