The Fish Hot Dog Is a Great Catch

A few years ago, on a summer night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I had a hot dog that surprised me so much I’m thinking about it now. At first, the “Sea Dog” from the wine bar Dear Annie made me skeptical. It was plump, yes, but pallid, almost vampiric against its grilled bun. A squiggle of beige sauce and a scatter of cornichons added only a little excitement.

One bite later, I knew that Dear Annie, a pescatarian establishment, was onto something. Made with shrimp, scallops, and haddock, the Sea Dog existed at the intersection of shrimp roll, fish cake, and hot dog, with the lively springiness of a good fish ball and clean, delicate flavor of seafood. When Dear Annie came to Brooklyn last fall, I ate it again, sans bun, and found that it was just as good. On both occasions, I wondered: Why aren’t there more hot dogs like this?

The Dear Annie dog does have some cousins around the country. The San Francisco seafood restaurant Aphotic has offered one made with bluefin tuna and topped with caviar, pickle relish, and gold leaf. (It’s not currently on the menu, though the restaurant will likely continue to serve it in some capacity.) Warm-blooded bluefin tuna has “a visual aspect not dissimilar to red meat,” says chef and proprietor Peter Hemsley. “It looks like beef. For us, it’s like the beef of the ocean. Let’s try it in a hot dog, which is made with, you know, the odds and ends of beef.”

Some food cultures, like those in France and Korea, readily embrace seafood sausages. It was a restaurant in Paris that inspired New York City’s lauded, now-closed Chanterelle to make its seafood sausage its signature dish. When Korean corn dogs trended recently, some were stuffed with fish cakes. Fish balls and fish cakes, which are essentially the same idea, are popular across East and Southeast Asia; writer Cathy Erway has described them as “hot dogs of the sea.” In some countries, like Sweden, the seafood goes on top of a hot dog, as with the street food known as tunnbrödsrulle. But in the United States, seafood hot dogs — especially eaten as casually as beef ones — have yet to hook diners more broadly. Could that change?

Let’s clarify what I’m talking about. Despite its name, I don’t mean a Wienerschnitzel Sea Dog, which, with its battered and fried fish filet, is really just a fried fish sandwich in different form. Nor do I mean “fish dogs” as defined by Montclair, New Jersey’s Fish Delish, which fills its buns with either a narrow slab of grilled salmon or a row of fried shrimp. I’m talking about seafood that’s emulsified into a fine paste and then shaped into a tube with a smooth-squishy hot dog texture. At Aphotic, lamb casing and the addition of beef fat balances out the tuna’s leanness, giving it that hot dog feel.

Naturally, I was intrigued when I began to see salmon hot dogs in the Whole Foods seafood section; early last year, the grocery store introduced four flavors of salmon hot dogs from the Kvarøy Arctic brand.

I cooked up a package of original and cheese, and while I was already more open to the concept than many others, I liked it even more than I expected. The salmon dog was dense and savory. The cheese didn’t ooze like it does in a stuffed Oscar Meyer, but it still added flavor. Though I could tell the dog was salmon, it was more like a regular meat hot dog than Dear Annie’s hybridized Sea Dog, with its elusive lightness in both flavor and texture.

Kvarøy Arctic isn’t the only seafood company with a hot dog. In 2022, Blue Circle Foods expanded its product line to include both salmon hot dogs and sausages. As of this writing, however, Blue Circle has put the hot dogs on hold to focus on its sausages. In addition to its salmon burgers and filets, it now also sells salmon breakfast links and “shorties.” According to CEO Nina Damato, it’s all part of a goal to offer approachable products that “introduce seafood in a new way.”

Since people already know and love sausages, “we’re finding that people who wouldn’t necessarily default to a salmon filet for dinner are attracted to something like a salmon sausage, because it’s a novel product,” Damato says. Plus, she adds, the fact that the sausages are already fully cooked appeals to customers who might otherwise fear cooking fish.

Seafood hot dogs are a small category, and perhaps justifiably so: Previous attempts to popularize them in the U.S. floundered. In 1959, Tunies, frozen frankfurters made of tuna, hit and then disappeared from the market. In the late 1980s, both Bounty of the Sea and Ham of the Sea introduced similar products, along with tuna lunch meat. Though the premise appealed to Catholics, who might opt for fish on Fridays, it clearly didn’t stick.

As a country, we’ve preferred to off-load extra fish into fish sticks, giving them the title of “the ocean’s hot dog.” But perhaps the strongest argument in favor of the fish hot dog is indeed avoiding food waste. Aphotic, which describes itself as a “best-practice seafood restaurant” that prioritizes “transparency and traceability,” operates with a mission of using the whole fish; as with beef, a hot dog is a good way to repurpose odds and ends. Aphotic’s other charcuterie experiments include rockfish bratwurst and spot prawn mortadella.

Both Blue Circle and Kvarøy Arctic also cite the use of off-cuts as motivation for their new salmon products. Another company, the Kentucky-based Two Rivers Fisheries, is turning the invasive Asian carp into fish sausage, in addition to meatballs and patties.

There are some indicators that curiosity about seafood hot dogs and sausages is growing. Earlier this year, TikTok creator Jack Mancuso’s video of a seafood sausage made with lobster, scallops, and halibut picked up over 600,000 views. And Blue Circle’s products have made it into the highly curated freezer at Pop Up Grocer, a true vote of confidence.

While the concept of a fish hot dog might initially seem bizarre, “people love hot dogs,” Aphotic’s Hemsley says. “If you provide them something that is a creature comfort — that’s very approachable — and then tell them it’s made with a luxury ingredient like bluefin tuna, it really trips them out.”

I know one thing: I would certainly eat more seafood hot dogs, if only they were available.