Hot Dogs for Vegans

Over the weekend we hosted our closest friends for a back-to-school backyard barbecue, indoors. While it was too hot to hang outside, I wanted to channel the energy of a backyard gathering, keeping expectations low and offering a menu that was casual and kid-friendly, since kids would be included. Some of our friends even had the nerve to have more than one child, but I have made it clear I can only commit to a relationship with the first born in any family.

Including kids necessitated a menu leaning heavily on simple crowd-pleasers like hot dogs (bratwurst for the parents), a couple of salads, and ice cream - plus plenty of Champagne. The only wrinkle is that we have several vegetarian/vegan friends, and I am told they don’t eat meat. I still don’t know how a person with dietary restrictions slipped into my friend group, let alone several people, but what’s done is done - they did, I love them, there’s no turning back, and I wanted to be a great host.

This is what brought me to carrot hot dogs.

I thought, I’m gonna blow these fuckers away with something they’ve never seen before. I understood carrot hot dogs to be a wholly original idea until a quick search online corrected my assumption. BUT: as with many things on the internet, there were shades of inspiration combined with more ideas of what NOT to do.

I borrowed the best ideas (including marinating them overnight in the cooking liquid), introduced a few of my own (simmering them with kombu, reducing the liquid and glazing the carrots with the reduction) - the result was a savory, punchy, very delicious carrot hot dog that I would (and will) make again, even without vegetarians/vegans on the guest list.

You’ll have to make your own vegan friends (they’re honestly just like us), and when you do, here’s the recipe to let them know you love them, too: