What is up you guys? It's Susie from HeyGrillHey.com and
today I'm coming at you with a super simple recipe. Kind of a
Midwestern American classic. I'm sure you guys have had it.
Bacon Wrapped Little Smokies but we're cooking them on a
smoker. Giving them a little spicy sweet twist. They're
absolutely amazing. You guys are going to love them. Let's
do it.
Now, I don't know if you guys grew up like I did but at every
holiday gathering, there was some version of a little smokey
appetizer or snack situation and I have yet to cook a little
smokey on my smoker. So, it felt like it was time for the
smokey little smokies to be born. So, very simple. I mean,
I think we got four or five ingredients here and let's do
it. Yeah? Yeah. You're going to need a package of Lil Smokies
This is Hillshire Farm but I know that they're also off
brands. A pound of bacon. We're going to cut that into thirds.
I've got about a/ 2 a cup of brown sugar, couple tablespoons
of my sweet herb seasoning or you can use your favorite
barbecue seasoning for this one and then we're going to need a
little bit of buffalo sauce. This is going to bring like the
tangy heat goodness. Alright, we're going to start by cutting
our bacon into thirds. You certainly don't need a whole
piece of bacon to wrap a little smokey. So, just taking, I
mean, I'm just going to eyeball it. That looks like a third.
Little smokey. It's basically a fantastic little sausage. They
have different variations. There's all beef. This is a
pork and chicken blend and they're like little mini hot
dogs. We're going to wrap one with a piece of the bacon and
secure it with a toothpick and pop it into a big glass bowl.
Last little smokey all wrapped up in bacon and I do have a few
extra pieces of bacon which is never a bad thing. I might
actually just season that and smoke it alongside the little
smokies for some candied bacon bites. Okay, all of our
beautifully skewered bacon wrapped little smokies are in a
bowl. I'm just going to drizzle these guys with some buffalo
sauce. About 1/ 4 of a cup and this is going to create kind of
a layer for our seasoning blend to stick to. But it's also
going to give us some really great heat and some acidity and
tanginess to kind of compliment the rich fattiness of the
smokies and the sweet coating on the outside.
I love buffalo sauce. I have a middle child who is a buffalo
sauce themed and I just have a really good feeling that he's
going to love these. Okay, I've got about a 2 a cup of dark
brown sugar. To that, I'm going to add two tablespoons of
my sweet rub seasoning. You can grab this in my store or I
actually have the recipe for sweet rub on my website. It'll
be linked in the recipe card or you can use your favorite
barbecue seasoning. Now, we're just going to take each
toothpicked little smoky and roll it in our sweet rub brown
sugar mixture. Make sure it's on all sides. As I'm coating
these in our brown sugar mixture, I'm just placing them
on a wire rack above a baking sheet. The wire rack itself is
actually going to transfer to be right on top of the grill
grates of our smoker but putting them over a baking
sheet really helps catch any of the excess brown sugar or
anything that drips away and it'll save you a little bit of
cleanup and make the transferring process a lot
quicker too. Last little smokey and you can already see the
ones that I started with. The sugars have started to kind of
melt into that hot sauce and the color is absolutely
beautiful because the sweet rub we put in the brown sugar. I'm
just going to take my little extra bit of brown sugar and
kind of sprinkle my way across the top because this is
going to give us a nice little crunchy crust as everything
cooks. I've got my smoker preheated to 275 degrees. You
really can use your favorite wood here. I don't think you
could go wrong. If you wanted a really heavier wood smoke, go
for something like a mesquite or an oak but otherwise, you're
going to be great with whatever you're using. We're cooking at
275. So that should give us enough heat to really render
out the fat in our bacon but not burn the sugars in the
coating on the outside.
We're just going to let these rock and roll at 275 for the
next 45 minutes or so. At 45 minutes, if the bacon is not
rendered as much as I want it, I'll probably push it up to an
hour but 45 minutes is really when you want to start checking
to see if they're done.
Alright, just about 45 minutes and these smoky little smokies
look absolutely perfect. You can see all the color they
picked up from the smoker. The sweet rub looks beautiful. That
brown sugar has really caramelized on the outside and
most of the fat has rendered out of our bacon. My mouth is
watering. These are like shiny and sticky and look absolutely
amazing.
You. Now, if that isn't the perfect little party platter, I
don't know what is. I have a feeling these are going to go
real fast. I think the dainty thing would be to probably just
take like a little bite, right? Uh-huh. Oh my gosh. Oh, they're
so yummy. Great smokey flavor. The bacon is rendered and
really tender. It's not crispy bacon but it just melts away in
your mouth and leaves you with all of that yummy, beautiful,
bacon, salty flavor and then the sweet and right on the back
end now. I'm getting the heat from the buffalo sauce. I could
eat 75 of these. These are amazing. I have a feeling you
guys are going to love this one. I think your family is
going to love them too. So, I recommend you grab the recipe
at HeyGrillHey.com. Give these guys a try and when you
do, snap a photo, tag me on social media. That way, I can
see it and cheer you on on your journey to becoming a Backyard
Barbecue Hero. Catch you guys next time. Okay, fine. We'll
have another one.