If your typical hot dog routine involves ketchup and maybe a squiggle of mustard, prepare for culinary shock. Tucson’s Sonoran Hot Dog treats those flimsy toppings like a cruel joke.
We are entering a world where a frankfurter is lovingly wrapped in bacon, steamed in a specialized bun, and then loaded with no fewer than eight different ingredients. Pinto beans, diced tomatoes, jalapeño salsa-it’s an architectural feat of flavor complexity.
Tucson is the epicenter of this delicious excess, and we visited 14 top-tier Sonoran carts where “less is more” is a phrase they simply refuse to understand.
1. El Güero Canelo
What began as a single cart in the early 1990s has grown into Tucson’s most famous Sonoran-dog empire, celebrated coast to coast. This family-run operation from Magdalena, Sonora, serves the canonical bacon-wrapped frank in a bolillo roll with pinto beans, tomatoes, grilled onions, mayo, mustard, and jalapeño salsa…