Exclusive Hot Dog Taste Test: Determining the Best Brand for Your Fourth of July Cookout

To determine the best hot dog for my Fourth of July cookout, I conducted a taste test of beef hot dogs from Nathan’s, Sabrett, Applegate, and Ball Park. Each brand had its own unique qualities that set it apart from the others. For example, Ball Park had the thickest frank, Sabrett did not meet my expectations in terms of flavor given its higher price tag, and I found Applegate’s organic hot dogs to be the most flavorful of the bunch.

With Americans consuming approximately 7 billion hot dogs and generating around $614 million in sales between Memorial Day and Labor Day during “hot dog season,” I wanted to find the brand that offered the most value for my money. To do this, I selected beef hot dogs from four different brands – Applegate, Sabrett, Nathan’s, and Ball Park – each package containing a different quantity of hot dogs ranging from six to eight franks.

I prepared each hot dog in the same manner and served them on Martin’s long potato rolls with Heinz ketchup and French’s classic yellow mustard. After tasting each brand, I ranked them from worst to best based on my preferences. This exclusive content is available only to Business Insider subscribers.