Welcome back to The Barbecue Lab. My name is David Gafford, and today we're going to
be creating bacon candy chicken bites.
[music]
So bacon candy chicken bites are delicious little bites of chicken.
We're gonna use chicken thighs, wrap them in bacon, cover them in a little brown sugar
and some barbecue rub, and get them out on the smoker. Now this is a really quick
recipe. This isn't something that takes a long time to make. But all you got to do
is find some nice chicken thighs, and we got these chicken thighs at our local
Sam's Club, and they're only about a dollar a pound. They're really pretty
cheap. All you have to do is take your knife and cut out the bone on the inside.
When you cut out the bone, all you're gonna do is cut through and trace the
bone, and when you do you can pull that bone out all in one piece, and you end up
with a boneless chicken thigh. Now on this recipe we're also not gonna use the
skin. We're just gonna go ahead and go for that nice lean piece of thigh meat
on the inside and wrap that up in bacon. So after you have it, we're gonna cut
these pieces of chicken thighs right into small bite-sized pieces. Enough that
you can just wrap it with about 1/3 of a piece of bacon. So that's gonna be
something that's like a single bite that you would take that and just be able to
put it in your mouth, pop it in bite-size. So out of that single chicken thigh I
was able to get eight bites out of a single chicken thigh. And you can notice
they're just big enough to be able to kind of grab one, pop them in your mouth.
Now I'm gonna take this strip of bacon here. I have two strips of bacon.
And I can get three pieces of bacon to wrap these in. I'm just going to cut
these into thirds. And you can just eyeball it. We're not measuring here. But
I'm gonna cut it into thirds, and all I have to do is grab a strip of bacon and
I'm just gonna take this chicken thigh and wrap it right up inside. If you look
at it, lovely little bacon wrapped chicken thigh. And I was going to take a
toothpick to secure it back through. And that is our bacon wrapped
chicken bite. Now the seasoning.
So we've got these chicken bites wrapped and
they're ready to go, except for the fact that we've got to get the rub on top.
So what we have here is a little bit of brown sugar and we have some barbecue rub.
Now this barbecue rub is Malcom Reed's from Killer Hogs. This is The
Barbecue Rub, and this stuff is delicious, especially on
chicken bites like this. So what we need to do is add some sweetness, and add some
barbecue flavor. So we're gonna start with a little bit of sweetness. And all
we're gonna do is take some brown sugar and put it on top of these. We want to
make sure we get it on each side. So I'm just gonna put brown sugar on it. Take it on
the other side, put a little bit of brown sugar on. And then just roll it around,
pick up that brown sugar that's left. And once we've done that we're
just gonna take the barbecue rub and sprinkle a little bit on top, all on both
sides, to make sure it's evenly covered. And that way we're gonna have these
lovely little candy bacon chicken bites. And these are ready for smoker.
[music]
So we've had these bacon candy chicken bites on here for about 40 minutes now.
We're running right around 250 on the grill. And so let's check them out.
If you look at these they are starting to look fantastic.
But what we're looking for is that bacon to really crisp up. So that's gonna be
delicious bites. It's gonna be actually something that you bite into with a
little bit of a crunch. It's not quite there yet. You can see that with these,
still a little bit on the back side, still needs a little bit of time.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back through, I'm just gonna flip all these,
and give them a little time on side two. Now if you wanted to do these faster you
could definitely kick up the heat on this. You could run this with a good 300 to
325 degrees, and you'd be able to get a crisp faster. But we're just gonna go ahead
and flip this over, and get them on some smoke.
So our bacon candy chicken bites have been on the grill
for probably about an hour, hour and 15 minutes.
We started about 250, and then over time we kicked the smoker temperature up to about
350 to get those crispy and ready to go on the outside. We're finally ready.
Let's take a look.
That is what I want those crispy bacon chicken bites to look just
like, and they are full of goodness. They're gonna be crispy and delicious.
We're gonna get them off and go eat them.
So we pulled off these candy bacon chicken bites
and we've let them rest for just a little bit. And I can't wait anymore.
I've got to try one of these.
So this one right here is calling my name,
I can feel it right now. But look at that.
That gooey, sugary, caramelized goodness on the outside.
That's so good the toothpick is worth licking.
All I have to say is if you haven't tried this recipe,
take up a challenge this weekend and make this recipe.
Candy bacon chicken bites does not disappoint.
It is delicious.
We hope that you make it at home and wow your friends and neighbors
there in the backyard. And if you want to see more from The Barbecue Lab,
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We hope you love this. We hope you try it at home.
And we can't wait to see you next time.