NATIONAL DAYFOOD & DRINK

National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day

Tiny hot dogs, fancy dough, a plate of mustard. National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day on April 24 is America's formal acknowledgment that the best party food is the smallest party food.

APR24

Saturday, April 24Every year on April 24

days to go

Roots: German Würstchen
Vibe: Unserious
Also on Apr 24: International Sculpture Day · Fashion Revolution Day · Arbor Day
Hashtag: #NationalPigsinaBlanketDay

Add to my calendar Send a card Email a friend

Apple or Outlook calendar

Ways to celebrate

Four steps. No exceptions:

🌭 Buy cocktail franks (Lil' Smokies, mini hot dogs — whatever your market calls them).
🥐 Buy crescent dough. Pillsbury works. The purists can make their own.
🔥 Wrap, bake 375°F for 12–15 minutes until golden.
🥫 Mustard and ketchup — both. Honey mustard if you're fancy. Whole-grain if you're French.

Make it your kind of celebration

Family
Pigs-in-a-blanket is the rare food kids help make and kids eat. Little hands roll the dough, everyone wins.
Kids
Count them before and after. Whoever eats more loses the contest (i.e., wins the contest).
Couples
An honest admission: at home, eating pigs-in-a-blanket in sweatpants watching a movie is more fun than most restaurants.
Office
A tray at the team meeting and you are instantly the person everyone likes.
School
Potluck day staple. Easy to transport, holds its heat, universally loved.
Community
Block-party appetizer. Cheap to scale — a bag of cocktail franks + two tubes of crescent dough feeds 20 kids.
Just me
Four pigs, a glass of something, a terrible TV show. That is a complete evening.

Plan ahead

National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day is observed on April 24 every year. Here is where it lands for the next ten years, handy for planners, marketers and party people.

2026Fri, Apr 24this year

2027Sat, Apr 24

2028Mon, Apr 24

2029Tue, Apr 24

2030Wed, Apr 24

2031Thu, Apr 24

2032Sat, Apr 24

2033Sun, Apr 24

2034Mon, Apr 24

2035Tue, Apr 24

2036Thu, Apr 24

Add to my calendar (repeats yearly)

Fast facts

1957

April 24, 2027

The story

The pig-in-a-blanket is not an American invention, but America perfected it, named it, and made it the undisputed king of the appetizer tray.

Read the full story

Sausage wrapped in pastry is an old idea. German Würstchen im Schlafrock ("little sausages in dressing gowns") and French saucisson en croûte both predate the American version by centuries. British "sausage rolls" long rectangles of puff pastry wrapped around larger sausages, are another close cousin, sold in every UK supermarket and Greggs bakery.

The American version, tiny hot dogs wrapped in biscuit or crescent dough, first appears in print in Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids in 1957. The crescent-dough tube had just been invented by Pillsbury in 1965 ("Doesn't it make you want to ... stay home?" went the ad), and the combination of pre-made dough + cocktail franks turned an old-world appetizer into a 15-minute miracle.

By the 1970s, pigs-in-a-blanket were the defining American party food cocktail hour, Super Bowl, holiday buffet, bridal shower.

They also carry a specific kind of nostalgia. For most Americans over 25, the smell of pigs-in-a-blanket in the oven is a direct link to their grandmother's kitchen, their neighbor's holiday party, the last wedding they went to. Universal, unpretentious, and basically impossible to screw up. National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day on April 24 is simply a nod to that fact.

Four things that separate a great pig from a sad one:

Same idea, different passport, six relatives of the American classic: