Smoked Bacon Wrapped Meatballs

At our most recent cookout, I wanted to try something different. So while perusing online recipes, I found a few for smoked meatballs. I’m not one to follow a recipe so I took 3 different recipes and made into one. These were delicious! The only thing I would recommend is using grated cheddar. I stuffed these with cubes which made the meatballs a little bigger than they need to be.

2 lbs ground beef or beef/pork mix

2 tbsp of your favorite BBQ rub plus a little for dusting

1/2 a sweet onion finely diced

2 jalapenos finely diced

3 garlic cloves finely diced

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp cracked black pepper

1 1/2 cups of shredded cheese

1 package of thin cut bacon

1 egg

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs

BBQ sauce

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together everything but the bacon and BBQ sauce. Once everything is combined, start forming your meatballs. Once they are formed, I like to put them in the fridge or freezer so become more sturdy and they do not lose their shape when wrapping them in bacon. Once they are firm, wrap each meatball with a half piece of the thin cut bacon. Then dust the meatballs with your BBQ rub. I smoked mine at 180 degrees for almost 2 hours. The ones I made were a little larger than a golf ball so if you are making smaller ones, adjust your time. I prefer to pay more attention to the internal temperature of the meat rather than the time because each grill is different. When they reached 135 degrees, I brushed them with the BBQ sauce. Between 145 - 150 degrees is when I removed them from the smoker and let them cool slightly.

These were great and something I will definitely be doing again! Please leave a comment below and let us know what you think or if there is something you have done to make these even better!