Bacon Wrapped Sausage Poppers | Tailgating Recipes

Meat lover fans, get ready, because these bacon-wrapped sausage poppers are gonna float right into your mouth. There's no way I can say that with a straight face. These are so easy to make. Bacon, pimento cheese, of course the sausage, there's jalapenos, slowly smoked to perfection. If you're a fan of jalapeno poppers, this is the upgrade right here. Whip out some sausage, go make this recipe, I'm gonna eat. This is really a meat lover's version of the poppers, because instead of choosing to stuff these with meat, we're gonna flip it inside out, and actually stuff the sausages with all the toppings, including the jalapenos. Now the one deviation I'm gonna make is I'm gonna upgrade that filling. From just cream cheese and cheddar, we're gonna make some jalapeno pimento cheese. Alright, so first ingredient, we need cream cheese. Now I definitely recommend using the Philly brand of cream cheese. You also wanna make sure that it is room temperature, because it's gonna be softer to spread in this recipe. We're also gonna be adding a half pound of shredded cheddar. Now if you wanna mix this up, you could also use some gouda, that'd be really nice. Or gouda, heh heh. Next to round out the trifecta of creamy cheesy things, we're adding a half cup of mayo. This is Duke's. This is classic for a pimento cheese dip. Speaking of pimentos, let's go ahead and add those. This is a four ounce jar, and I've drained most of the liquid out of here before adding it in. These are jarred pimentos, so we'll mix those in. And then I've got about, maybe a half cup, which was about three or so jalapenos I've diced up. Left a lot of the seeds in here too, because I wanted to kick up that heat. If you wanna mix this up too, you could use pickled jalapenos, I love using those. Some people don't, but fresh ones work really well. Got a little bit of Dijon, about a tablespoon or so. Then we got about a teaspoon or so of paprika. Got a little bit of black pepper. I'm using about a, maybe another teaspoon or so. And then a little bit of sugar. This just kind of balances it out. I mean, it is barbecue, so a little bit of sweet heat works really well. And then, you just wanna give this a mix. Really mash in that cream cheese. Make sure everything gets stirred very well. And if you want it a little bit more creamy, you can always add more mayo, you can add more cream cheese. I just think this is a really nice consistency. It's got a lot of chunks of the peppers and chilies that you can see in here, the pimentos of course. And this is kind of just an elevated version of a popper. Take a look at that. Don't you wanna just dip something in that, like a cracker or a piece of bacon? This is seriously such a great recipe on its own. You could stop the video here and just make this and probably have a great day. Alright, so let's talk sausages. Alright, so let's talk sausages, because obviously these are sausage poppers. So, you could choose any kind of sausages. Some of my favorites would be like regular Italian sausage, even the hot Italian. I also love brats, so I got some beer brats here, and I'm gonna slice these open. Let me show you how that works. Alright, so all we have to do is take the sausage. By the way, this is an uncooked sausage, meaning that it's still raw on the inside. So you'll just need to slice down the middle here. Use any kind of sharp knife. And then you just wanna press down the meat, so you can basically make like a boat for the filling here. That's why I call these the sausage popper boats originally. Kinda reminds me of like a canoe. There you go, like a kayak. Okay, then from here what we're gonna do is just spoon in some of this pimento cheese. And if you wanna use a piping bag and make it look all pretty, you can do that. I'm not gonna put the spoon and touch the sausage and contaminate the cheese, so just be aware of that. Alright, so I've got these all split and filled, and if you wanted to, you could stop here. I mean, these would be really delicious smoked just like this. In fact, I've done that many times. That was kinda the original recipe. But things are better with bacon. Now what you'll wanna do is just buy some cheap bacon. You don't need good stuff when you're wrapping things. You want it just really thin. It's gonna be about two pieces, depending on how stretchy and thin your bacon is. So don't feel bad about this. I mean, these are kinda fat bombs anyway. So let's go ahead and wrap the bacon all the way around. Big key is making sure we cover the cheese. You could use toothpicks if you wanted to hold the bacon in place, but honestly it will stay there, especially if you actually let these set in the fridge while the smoker starts to warm up. I'm sure my editor's like, dang it Brad, bacon cheese sausage? I'm so jealous right now. Sorry Zach. Alright, I transferred these to a baking sheet. I'm gonna go ahead and pop them in the fridge for about 30 minutes. That'll help the bacon to firm up just a little bit. Plus I gotta preheat the smoker anyway. Now you might be wondering why haven't I added any spices. I'm gonna add some flavoring after I get it out of the fridge, not before, because I don't wanna compromise the bacon. So I'll pop it in. It's been about 30 minutes. The smoker's preheated. I set it to 250 degrees, and we've got the tray of the chilled sausage poppers here. I like to baste them in hot sauce because I like to add a little bit more of a kick. I know we got jalapenos in there, but don't judge me. Anyway, I'm gonna be using the FireRed hot sauce. This is my hot sauce of choice for right now. I poured some in a bowl, and I've just got a little brush. So I'm gonna go ahead and just glaze some hot sauce on the outside. If you want, you can use barbecue sauce. You can use barbecue seasoning. It's really up to you. I just warn you that with all the toppings and the bacon, it's gonna be potentially a little salty. So definitely keep that in mind as you're glazing or sprinkling seasoning onto these poppers. I almost feel like every time I make these, I end up doing kind of a different flavor combination. I just have a lot of fun making these poppers. All right, now I like to add a little bit extra pepper on the outside just for a kick. We'll just quick grind out some coarse black pepper here. Okay, there we have it. We've got the poppers glazed. They've got the cracked pepper. They are ready to go, so let's get them on the smoker. All right, let's get these guys on the smoker. I'm gonna use my hands because I don't want to use tongs and accidentally unwrap the bacon or something. So we'll go gentle here. Smoker's set to about 250. It's spiking right now just because the lid's open, but these will go for about 45 minutes to an hour. We'll see how well the bacon crisps up, and we'll check on them. I'll give it about 45 minutes here, and then I'll come right back. All right, it's been 45 minutes. Let's give them a look. Ooh. So they're looking really nice. I want the bacon a little crispier, so I think I'm gonna let them go for probably another 15, 20 minutes or so. A great smoke color. The cheese isn't oozing out everywhere, so let's let them hang out. All right, let's check on these. Ooh, they've had about another 20 minutes. This bacon's a little bit more rendered, so I like that. Let's go ahead and take these off. All right, I just brought these bad boys in. Ooh, these smell good. Let's slice them up and see what they look like. I know what it's gonna look like inside, but, you know, for the camera, let's go ahead. Slice right through. Ooh. You guys ready? Let's check this out. Oh. Oh, that's what I'm talking about. That boat of pimento cheese right in there. That's the perfect bite. I'm really happy with the filling, and I love pimento cheese. It's just a perfect pairing with the smoked sausage, the cracked pepper on here, the smoky crispy bacon. I mean, it's a total fat bomb, but I'm here for it. It kind of reminds me of, like, a breakfast patty, but a lot less work because you don't have to form this giant patty, and you get all the same flavors. This is just, like, so good. Now, obviously, I used pimento cheese. Huge hit. But you could use cream cheese and jalapenos if you wanted to keep it simple, or try something crazy. I bet you these would be so good with cheesy scrambled eggs. I'm going to have to make those. Hope you guys try this recipe. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I'll see you guys next time. Cheers. Mmm.