Everyone raves about our hometown hot dog shoppe’s chili sauce. For Father’s Day we were having a cookout for the dads and wondered what goes best with hot dogs??? CHILI!

I started searching to see if there was already a “copy that” recipe for our favorite restaurant. We found a few but my mom helped us doctored up a generic recipe.

Now for all you meat lovers out there this is not a meaty sauce. The owners of the shoppe discourage the use of the name meat sauce because there is so little meat for per batch of chili.

I can remember going to the restaurant as child with my family. There are a lot of fun memories we shared while we enjoyed these hot dogs, whether it be at the booth or in the local park during the annual chalk on a walk event. Hopefully if you are trying this recipe it takes you back and may I suggest drinking a strawberry shake to help further reminisce.

Ingredients:
1 lb lean 97/3 ground beef
3 cans of no added salt tomato sauce
3 cans of tomato paste
3 TB chili powder (high quality I recommend penzeys)
1 TB ground black pepper
3 tsp Salt
1 TB Garlic powder
1 TB onion powder
2 TB Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Corn starch
2 quarts of water

Directions:
1. In a 5 qt pan brown meat on medium high until no pink meat remains. Drain excess liquid from pan to discard.

2. Add remaining ingredients except for corn starch to the same pot you cooked the meat.

3. Cook sauce uncovered on medium high heat until it boils and turn down stove to simmer for and hour.

4. Now take 1/4 cup of the liquid out of the sauce (try and avoid getting any meat) and place in a small bowl add the corn starch. Mix until corn starch liquifies. Then add the corn starch slurry back into the chili.

5. Now place the chili sauce in your favorite crock pot or slow cooker set on low and cook for 16 to 18 hours.

6. Enjoy on hot dogs or a hamburger!