The Most Popular Food To Grill in Every State

My next-door neighbor has a two-year-old son with the same birthday as me. He’s a bit of a picky eater, but there is one thing that he loves and will always eat: sausage. Maybe it’s our shared birthday, our shared German roots, or another secret serendipity, but I love this connection.

I also love that whenever I head next door for a cookout, hot dogs will be on the grill. I believe in my bones that hot dogs are the quintessential summer cookout food—and apparently, I’m not the only one.

Target dug into its shopping data and released a report on the most popular Fourth of July grilling item in every state this year. By a huge margin, hot dogs won out. 75% of states prefer hot dogs to hamburgers on the Fourth!

Hot Dogs vs. Hamburgers on the Fourth of July

Unsurprisingly, my home state of Illinois is a hot dog state. Anecdotally, this feels right. I've lost count of how many times I have bitten into a juicy Chicago-style hot dog on July Fourth, sitting poolside, sweating and waiting for fireworks to commence.

The rest of the Midwest is also pro-hot dog, except for Minnesota, which I suspect is under the influence of the Juicy Lucy lobby. (For the unfamiliar, a Juicy Lucy is a burger stuffed with melty cheese.)

The most surprising state to prefer a hamburger, though, is New York! What’s going on over there? Aren’t hot dogs kind of their thing? Maybe New Yorkers need a break from the hot dog carts.

One notable takeaway is the fact that only three states are firmly egalitarian, with no clear preference for a hot dog or a hamburger: Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico. Since Colorado is a melting pot of outdoorsy drifters from across the country, I can kind of see why there's equal representation there. The beef industry is huge in Kansas, so maybe that's why hamburgers can hold steady alongside hot dogs.

As for New Mexico, I’m stumped. I guess the aliens like both burgers and dogs.