If we’re looking for authentic Norwegian food, one of the most common fast foods we’ll come across is, surprisingly, pølse i lompe—essentially the Norwegian hot dog.
This isn’t a Michelin-starred dish: it’s basically a hot dog with the sausage wrapped in a distinctive Norwegian potato flatbread instead of a bun—more on that below. Still, it’s a very characteristic Norwegian food, and definitely worth trying if you visit the country, because it’s quite a different experience from a traditional hot dog served in a bun.
What Is a Lompe?
The first—and perhaps most important—question that comes up is what exactly a lompe is. After all, pølse i lompe literally means sausage or hot dog in a lompe.
A lompe is a typically Norwegian, soft, round potato flatbread. It’s made mostly from cooked, mashed potatoes, with a little flour and salt, then cooked without oil, traditionally on a griddle called a takke. It’s eaten with various sweet and savory fillings, but one of its best-known uses is pølse i lompe, with a hot dog wrapped inside.
You can make lompe at home, but it’s also sold ready-made in almost every Norwegian supermarket.
I’d like to emphasize once more what goes into a lompe. Because the simplest, traditional lompe dough contains nothing beyond potatoes, flour, and a little salt. The flour may be all wheat flour, but you’ll also find versions made with a mixture of wheat and rye flour. There’s no yeast, baking powder, or other leavening agent, and the simplest recipes don’t add water, oil, or any other liquid separately.
For now, I’m showing you the recipe using store-bought lompe that I bought in Norway. I do plan to make homemade lompe too; when I do, I’ll add my own experience and the homemade recipe to what I’ve written here.
What Kind of Sausage Goes Into Pølse i Lompe?
The Norwegian word pølse generally means a type of sausage, but pølse i lompe is most often made with wienerpølse or grillpølse. Wienerpølse is roughly what Americans would call a hot dog or frankfurter, what Austrians call a Frankfurter, and Germans a Wiener Würstchen. It’s a thin, precooked sausage made from finely ground meat and usually lightly smoked. In Norway, it’s generally warmed in hot water.
Grillpølse is also usually mild, finely textured, and precooked, but it’s generally a little thicker, often skinless, and intended mainly for grilling or pan-frying. The closest American equivalent might be a hot dog meant for grilling: don’t think of a raw, coarsely ground grilling sausage. A good-quality frankfurter-style hot dog available in the U.S. is therefore a perfectly suitable choice for making pølse i lompe.
Since the sausage itself can be a perfectly ordinary type sold in other countries, just like the sauces and toppings served with it, what really makes the Norwegian hot dog distinctive is the lompe.
Pølse i Lompe in Norway
In Norway, pølse i lompe isn’t a special restaurant dish but one of the simplest and most popular everyday fast foods. It’s quick to make, easy to eat by hand, and relatively inexpensive when you need to feed a lot of people. That’s why you’ll find it not only at home, but often at children’s parties, sporting events, festivals, and school and community events too.
It’s particularly closely associated with May 17, Norway’s national holiday, when enormous numbers of hot dogs are eaten across the country. Some are served in traditional hot dog buns, others in lompe. Sausages are part of Norwegian outdoor life too: on hikes, or while skiing or sledding, people often cook them over a fire and eat them with bread or lompe. They can even turn up at weddings as a simple late-night snack.
As a visitor, you shouldn’t look for it in a restaurant. Pølse i lompe is sold by hot dog vendors and at kiosks known as pølsekiosk, but often at gas stations, train stations, airports, and chains such as Narvesen or 7-Eleven too. In many places, you can choose between a bun and lompe. If someone asks, lompe eller brød?, they simply want to know whether you’d like your hot dog in potato flatbread or a bun. If you want to be sure, order en pølse i lompe.
I tried it at Syverkiosken in Oslo, one of the city’s last traditional pølsekiosk. It isn’t the only place worth trying, but it’s a good example of how deeply these simple hot dog stands are—or at least used to be—part of Norwegian urban food culture.
Traditional Sauces and Toppings
There’s no single required combination of toppings for pølse i lompe. The simplest, and perhaps most common, version has just ketchup and mustard, either separately or together. The classic Norwegian pølsesennep is generally a mild, slightly sweet mustard, so don’t think of strong Dijon mustard here.
Another very characteristic topping is sprøstekt løk, or crispy fried onions. This doesn’t mean onions softened or caramelized in a pan, but dry, crunchy pieces of fried onion, which you can also buy ready-made. Finely chopped raw onion can go on the hot dog too. In Norway, regular onions are typically used for this, but the slightly milder, more colorful red onion works well too.
I made two versions, both of which could be called traditional—you can see them in the photos too. The first had only ketchup and mustard, while I served the second with ketchup, mustard, crispy fried onions, and finely chopped raw red onion. The first is the simplest Norwegian version possible; the onion toppings make the second a little more substantial and interesting.
You’ll find other characteristic toppings at pølsekiosk stands and gas stations. These include potato salad, shrimp salad, pickles, and pickle relish. More modern hot dog vendors may offer a much wider selection, and of course you can dress yours up to suit your taste. But for a traditional pølse i lompe, ketchup, mustard, and perhaps one of the onion toppings are quite enough.
How Is It Different From a Traditional Hot Dog?
Pølse i lompe is really a distinctly Norwegian version of the hot dog. The main difference isn’t the sausage but what it’s served in. In a traditional American-style hot dog, the sausage goes into a long, soft bun, while the Norwegian version wraps it in a thin, flexible potato flatbread.
Lompe gives the dish a very different character from a hot dog bun. It doesn’t have a thick, airy bread interior, so the flavors of the sausage and toppings come through more clearly. You can taste the mild flavor of the potato too, while the soft flatbread wraps closely around the sausage. The result is much less breadlike, with a different texture from a traditional hot dog.
Honestly, I liked it much more than a traditional hot dog—but that’s naturally a matter of taste. Here you aren’t biting into a puffy piece of bread, but a thin yet substantial flatbread. That brings out the flavors of the sausage and toppings much more clearly, while you also don’t get that feeling of becoming bloated from the bun—only to be hungry again half an hour later.
The sausage itself, however, isn’t necessarily very different. Norwegian wienerpølse is closely related to the frankfurters familiar in the U.S., and ketchup, mustard, and onion toppings aren’t exclusive to Norway either. The classic Norwegian combination is generally simpler, although you can naturally find quite elaborate versions at more modern vendors.
Norway also has hot dogs served in buns: you can ask for these as pølse med brød, literally “sausage with bread.” Pølse i lompe specifically means the version in which a potato-based lompe takes the place of the bun.
Pølse i Lompe
Ingredients
- 1 lompe traditional Norwegian potato flatbread
- 1 hot dog or frankfurter
- Mustard to taste
- Ketchup to taste
- Crispy fried onions to taste
Instructions
- First, heat the hot dog. Bring water to a boil, turn off the heat, and put the hot dog in the water for 5 minutes. The water doesn’t need to keep boiling.
- Drain the hot dog and place it in the lompe. Add ketchup, mustard, crispy fried onions, or anything else you like.
- Eat it with your hands, folding the flatbread over or wrapping it around the hot dog.
