Joey Chestnut Reveals His Favorite Way to Eat a Hot Dog When He’s Not Competing: ‘I’m a Little Bit Picky’ (Exclusive)

The 16-time winner of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest spoke with PEOPLE about his favorite foods and his partnership with Pepsi's #BetterWithPepsi campaign

Although he missed Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest for the first time in 20 years, Joey Chestnut isn’t sick of hot dogs yet. In fact, he eats them regularly outside of competition.

“Oh my god, I still love them,” he tells PEOPLE in an interview for his partnership with Pepsi. “If I'm at a baseball game, I'm going to have a hot dog and Pepsi goes with it, and it's one of those things I love.”

In lieu of the contest in Coney Island, he spent his Fourth of July competing at a fundraising event for military families at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas, where he downed 57 hot dogs in five minutes. His record of 76 hot dogs was set in double that time at Nathan’s, where contestants are given ten minutes.

While Chestnut, 40, said that the soda makes for a perfect complement, it's not the only thing he likes to pair with a hot dog.

“My go-to toppings are mustard and raw onions,” Chestnut tells PEOPLE. “Oh, a good chili cheese dog… The right proportions of chili cheese really help it."

Chestnut, the holder of over 50 competitive eating records, is also particular about how a hot dog should be cooked.

“I’m a little picky — if someone gives me a bad hot dog, or it’s boiled, then it’s rough,” he says.

The 16-time Nathan's champion says that ideally, the sausages should be cooked on a flat-top grill.

“That gets the juices flowing and they cook really nicely so they can get a little snap in there,” Chestnut explains, adding that if possible, he likes all-beef dogs with a natural casing, but “there's only four brands that make them, and so they're a little bit hard [to find].”

Related: Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th: See the Faces of Competition Through the Years

Although Chestnut and other competitive eaters can be seen dipping hot dogs in jugs of water during contests to make the buns more digestible, the Indiana native says that a bun is a key part of his perfect hot dog.

“The bun is overlooked all the time. A lot of times you get a hot dog and you unwrap it, and then the bun's split down the middle — you never want a split bun,” he says.

Chestnut has competed with dozens of foods during his 20-year career as a competitive eater, but he says that he still has a strong appetite for almost everything.

“Runners still love to run, even after they have a bad race, they still want to get back out on the road and run. So I think of eating the same way, even if I have a bad outing, I still love to eat,” he says.

He even has trouble choosing his favorite dishes.

“I have a fiancé, that's my favorite woman, but every day of the week I could have a different favorite food,” he jokes. “I love tacos quite a bit. Some days I really crave good seafood, king crab or shrimp. And my fiancé makes some pasta with pesto, with fresh pesto. Oh my god.”

Related: Why Is Joey Chestnut Banned from Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest? All About the Pro Eater

He has a busy summer ahead. Along with promoting the #BetterWithPepsi campaign (in which Pepsi is partnering with Instacart), Chestnut and his rival, Takeru Kobayashi, are set to compete in a hot dog eating contest on September 2 called Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef, which will air live on Netflix.

“I'm excited and nervous, and I feel like a kid,” Chestnut says about his emotions going into the matchup. “We are going to push each other to crazy limits, and that's what competition is… He's pushing me, and I'm so motivated during practice.”

While he appreciates his rivaI, that doesn’t mean they’re friends.

“I respect him, but I also don't like him. It's my only rival that I have this weird ... We both have friction. And he still has me blocked on Twitter and Instagram,” Chestnut says with a laugh. “It's awesome.”

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