What cheese tops a Kansas City-style hot dog?

A Kansas City-style hot dog is topped with Swiss cheese.

The regional style is typically a pork sausage served in a sesame-seed bun with brown mustard, sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese. The cheese is not merely an optional garnish in the classic description; it is the ingredient that gives this Kansas City variation its distinctive identity among American hot dogs.

Kansas City’s version fits the city’s broader barbecue and sausage traditions, combining smoky or savory meat with tangy sauerkraut, sharp mustard and the nutty, melting character of Swiss cheese. The toppings create a more European-influenced profile than styles built around chili, relish or raw onions.

This answer can be confused with other cheese-topped hot dogs. American cheese is common on many generic cheese dogs, while cheddar appears in several chili-dog and regional combinations. Provolone is also used in some specialty versions. Those possibilities do not change the canonical Kansas City-style pairing: pork sausage, sauerkraut, brown mustard and melted Swiss cheese.