Smoked Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Meatballs
One of the first times I used my smoker, I made meatballs. They turned out awful. In fact, awful might not even be the right word. What is worse than awful? That’s what those meatballs were. I thought I had followed the meatball recipe to a T, but unfortunately, they turned out to be too salty. Those meatballs were so salty that it would have been refreshing to drink water out of the Great Salt Lake after taking a bite of meatball. I’ve learned a few things since then, and after that experience, I don’t mess up my salt ratios. I’ve made meatballs a few times since that awful dining experience and today, I am going to share my favorite smoked meatball recipe with you.
Servings 4
Calories 350kcal
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound italian sausage
- 1 tbsp Paprika
- ½ tbsp kosher salt
- ¼ tbsp black pepper
- 1 egg
- 8 ounces cheddar cheese
- 2 jalapeno
- 1 lb bacon
Instructions
- Combine the meat, seasoning, and egg with your hands in a large bowl, and then set it off to the side.
- Cube the cheese into 8 equal portions.
- Thinly slice two jalapenos. You can remove the seeds from the jalapenos if you’d like. I’ve tried this meatball recipe both ways, and I can tell you I appreciated the added heat the seeds bring. I’ll let you make the call, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
- Slice the bacon slices in half
- Lay a large piece of wax paper out and divide your meat mixture into eight equal sized balls and place them on the wax paper.
- Once you’re done forming the balls flatten them out onto the wax paper. Flattening the balls makes it easy to add your jalapeno and cheese.
- Add a few slices of jalapeno and one cheese cube to the top of each meat patty, and then pull up the sides of the meat and seal the top.
- Wrap each meatball with a few slices of bacon. I like to wrap one slice, and then wrap another perpendicular to your first piece to give full coverage. Push a toothpick through the meatball and bacon to hold it all together.
- Transport the constructed meatballs over to your grilling rack and put them in the smoker. Before you put the meatballs in the smoker set your temp to 225 degrees.
- Cook your meatballs at 225 degrees for about an hour.
- After an hour, turn the heat up to 350 and cook until the bacon starts to crisp up
- You want to cook these meatballs until the internal temp of each one is 160 degrees. I use a Thermapen Mk4 to check internal temperatures and I love it. This grilling gadget is worth the investment!
- When your meatballs are up to temp, remove them from the smoker, and let them rest for about five minutes.
Notes
These meatballs are delicious on their own, or you can dip them in your favorite barbecue sauce. Stuffed meatballs are definitely not a new idea. I hope you like my take on them. If you’ve made stuffed meatballs before, I’d love to hear what you do differently! Let me know in the comments
Items in this recipe I recommend:
Thermapen Mk4
Grilling Rack
Nutrition
Calories: 350kcal