Fun little story: my husband was the first person I ever met who put mayonnaise on hot dogs. My family and I thought it was so weird and it was an ongoing joke between us for years. My dad even mentioned it in his speech at our wedding. Now, however, I actually really like mayo on hot dogs and it has opened up a new world of obscure hot dog toppings for me. All of this to say: when I was researching what to make for Arizona and came across the Sonoran dog, I knew I had to make it.

The Sonoran hot dog originated in Hermosillo, the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora. It’s actually unclear when it was invented and by whom. One theory is that they were first sold at baseball games in Sonora in the 1940s; another is that they were brought to Sonora via a traveling circus even before that. Regardless, they gained popularity in the 1980s with students at the University of Sonora and were sold by street vendors all across the university. They made their way north into Arizona during the wave of immigration in the early 2000s, and now there are over 200 vendors to get a Sonoran dog from in Tucson alone.

Sonoran hot dogs are wrapped in bacon and grilled until crispy and then stuffed into a split top roll called a bolillo. The toppings are where you go crazy. There are so many ways you can go with topping a Sonoran dog. The traditional way is with pinto beans, chopped tomatoes, raw & grilled onion, mayonnaise, mustard, and jalapeño salsa. I went a little rogue and air fried my bacon wrapped hot dogs to get them really crispy. I used brioche buns because I couldn’t find bolillos here in Alabama, and you’ll hear my disdain for dough-making later in this post, so I wasn’t going to attempt to make a bolillo myself. I warmed up canned pinto beans on the stove and added cumin, garlic salt & chili powder and mashed some of them to make a thicker bean-like sauce (bean sauce??) but kept most of the pintos whole. I topped the hot dogs with said beans as well as tomatoes, red onions, cotija cheese, pickled jalapeños, cilantro, and mayo! I actually bought some grocery store jalapeño salsa but forgot about it — whoops. I loved the combo I did, though. This was one of the best wacky hot dogs I’ve ever had. It was such a flavor bomb and I hope you guys try it!

This was my second go at making chimichangas for a food challenge. A few years ago, I cooked a single dish for each NFL team. I told myself I was going to try not to repeat any meals, but even though I made beef chimichangas for the Arizona Cardinals, I just had to make them again. Besides, I’m much better at cooking now than I was three years ago and it is evidenced by how these chimichangas came out.

Chimichangas have an interesting history. Like many popular dishes, there are multiple theories as to how the chimichanga came to be — but most at least have the chimichanga originating from Tucson. I’m going to share my favorite theory: in the late 1940s/1950s, Monica Flin, the owner of El Charro Cafe in downtown Tucson, was making late night burritos when one of her nieces startled her and made her drop her burrito in a vat of hot oil. The story goes, Flin reacted by shouting “CHIMICHANGA!” — a Spanish pseudo- expletive.

I opted to make shredded beef chimichangas with a 2lb chuck roast. I wanted the beef to be really melt-in-your-mouth tender with a cheesy gooey-ness (omg, yum). I cut the chuck roast into four smaller pieces and seasoned each side with salt & pepper. Then I set my Instant Pot to the sauté setting and seared the pieces of roast in some avocado oil until they got a nice, deep brown crust on all sides. I removed the meat from the Instant Pot and then deglazed all that fond at the bottom of the pot with two cups of beef broth. I added a can of stewed tomatoes, a sliced yellow onion, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper, and then added the meat back in. I pressure cooked this on high for 50 minutes and let it do a natural release. If you don’t want to use a pressure cooker, you can sear the meat on the stove and then transfer to a slow cooker for 8-10 hours — just please don’t skip searing the meat! It adds so much flavor.

When the meat is all done, you’re going to ask someone to take two forks and shred it. You can do it yourself, but I personally hate the sound of two forks clanking against each other and have to go into another room while my husband does it. Time to fry! Take a burrito-sized flour tortilla and add shredded Monterey Jack and Pepper Jack cheese (bonus points if you shred it yourself – it’s meltier!) Then add your meat and roll it up like you would a normal burrito. Except this time, you’re going to submerge the burrito in some 375° vegetable oil for a few minutes until golden brown on each side. Let the fried chimichangas drain on some paper towels and add your favorite toppings. We kept it simple with tomatoes and a homemade guacamole made in my molcajete! I never use measurements when I make guac, but this time I’m pretty sure I used 4 small avocados, half a white onion, a handful of cilantro, a jalapeño, a garlic clove, lime juice, salt and just pounded it all together until it was pulverized — adding the avocados last so they retain some of their texture. This is the best way to make guac in my opinion!

Just for fun, I ordered prickly pear syrup from Amazon to made lemonade with! As a nod to the prickly pear cacti commonly found in the Arizona-Sonora region.

Remember before when I said I was going to discuss my disdain for dough-making? Well here it is. Homemade dough is my kitchen kryptonite. I’m just bad at it. I have yet to master it, but was determined to not have these sopaipillas be a fail. And about 15% of them weren’t! Just enough to take this picture! The rest wouldn’t puff up at all, so we used them as fry bread chips to dip in the consommé left in the pot that the beef was cooked it (holy cow, what a good snack). For the few that did cooperate, I present to you: sopaipillas!

Sopaipillas actually originated in New Mexico. New Mexico and Arizona share a lot of regional cultural cuisine, so while they do technically come from New Mexico, sopaipillas are still wildly popular in Arizona and are served all over the state. Sopaipillas are fried pieces of dough covered in powdered sugar and honey or cinnamon sugar. I did powdered sugar and honey because it seemed like the tastiest combo (it was) (probably).

I actually got the recipe I used for the sopaipillas from a girl on Tik Tok (@marisolbenitez186) and her measurements in the video were: 2.5 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 3 tbsp oil, and 1.5 cups warm water. I ended up adding a lot more flour to this because I found that the dough was still way too sticky for me to work with. I’d recommend finding a recipe online to use if you ever try to make these!