The Viral Air Fryer Hot-Dog 'Bacon' That Has People Saying 'Yes No Yes'
We love a good viral food hack just as much as the next person, however, a lot of these “hacks” end up being a disaster worth avoiding altogether. And when we recently ran across a new hot dog-related hack we were instantly intrigued—and also a bit confused.
The BuzzFeed Tasty Instagram post is certainly compelling enough to grab anyone's attention. In a hot dog-themed reel that was shared last week, the food brand set out to either troll their followers or open their eyes to one of the greatest-looking air fryer inventions of our modern times: hot dog bacon.
The post reads, “It’s a hot dog summer,” and quickly gained over 600k likes and 12k comments. In the video, viewers can see a hot dog being sliced lengthwise into long, thin strips using a potato peeler. The strips are then placed in an air fryer before magically coming out looking like a distant relative of bacon.
Related: 94 TikTok Recipes That Are Easy to Make and Actually Taste Good
“This bothers me so much…what temperature should I air fry at,” one commenter jokingly pressed for more information. Another viewer added, “My question exactly. I have the dogs and a peeler.” And yet another person summed our emotions up with this comment: "Yes no yes."
Despite some questions going unanswered in the video, viewers in the comment section offered up their guesses on how to properly recreate the beautifully curly hot dog bacon hack at home. Some viewers recommend heating the strips at 400°F for 3 minutes, giving the basket a good shake, and checking for doneness before adding more time as needed in intervals of 2-3 minutes.
Even Oscar-Mayer joined in the excitement, commenting “Went from no to yes so fast,” which should give you an idea of just how good this hack might be. And then Sonic entered the chat with this comment: "Do you think this would work on a corn dog? Asking for a friend..."
It's important to note that depending on the brand of franks and the sharpness of your potato peeler, the slicing process may or may not go as smoothly as what is shown in the video. We tried this for ourselves and found it to be difficult to recreate the perfect slices that are portrayed with the potato peeler we had on hand.
And just as we were getting ready to hit "order" on that brand-new peeler in our online cart, we decided to take a look at the same video over on TikTok. There, the BuzzFeed folks offer more direction: 1. Freeze your hot dogs. 2. Peel your hot dogs. 3. Air fry your hot dogs. 4. Hot dog summer. Ah ha! Let us give that a try and we'll get back to you.
