Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Chicken Thighs
Smoking-Meat.com is supported by its readers. We may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you if you buy through a link on this page.
Read this article without ads
These smoked chicken thighs are stuffed with lots of white cheddar and jalapeños, seasoned with Jeff's original rub and wrapped in bacon to hold it all together.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Brine Time: 4 hours
- Cook Time: 1.5 to 2 hours
- Smoker Temp: 250°F
- Meat Finish Temp: 165°F
- Recommended Wood: Apple
- 8-12 chicken thighs, skinless and boneless
- Buttermilk brine (recipe below)
- Jeff's original rub
- White cheddar, cut into 2″ sticks
- Jalapeños, diced (fresh or pickled work great)
- Bacon, thin sliced
Soaking chicken in buttermilk is a great way to tenderize chicken and it adds some nice flavor to the meat as well.
In this version of bacon wrapped chicken thighs, I decided to combine the brining process into the buttermilk soak.
Remove the boneless chicken thighs from the package, trim off the extra fat with a pair of kitchen shears then place them in a medium sized bowl.
(As you can see, I got in a hurry and forgot to trim the fat before the soak. I took care of this afterwards.)
In a gallon sized pitcher, combine ½ gallon of buttermilk with ½ cup of coarse kosher salt. Stir for about 2 minutes to make sure the salt is dissolved.
Pour enough buttermilk brine over the meat to cover, put a lid on it and place the bowl in the fridge for about 3-4 hours.
After 3-4 hours, remove the chicken from the fridge and take the thigh meat out of the buttermilk, rinsing each piece well to remove any residual salt.
Discard the buttermilk brine.
There are 2 ways to season the meat:
The Better Way
Place the brined chicken thighs into a lidded container one layer at a time. Add Jeff's original rub to the first layer then add the 2nd layer of thighs and apply rub to those and so on.
Place the chicken back into the fridge for about 2 hours.
Here's what they look like when they come out of the fridge. The rub mixes with the meat juices and creates a sort of marinade. Because the rub is low in salt, it does not make them too salty even though they've been brined in buttermilk.
The buttermilk brine tenderized them and gave them a lot of flavor so if you have to do the faster version of the seasoning process, it's ok.
Lay them out flat
Season the inside liberally with Jeff's original rub.
Let them sit for about 5-7 minutes or until the rub starts looking “wet”.
The chicken thighs are now ready to stuff with cheese and jalapeños.
Cut a block of white cheddar cheese into ½ inch strips that are about 2 inches long.
You can also buy cheese sticks that already about the right size in diameter. Just cut them in half and they are perfect.
Add a teaspoon of diced jalapeño on top of the cheese.
Fold the chicken thighs back over to finish the stuffing process.
Stretch the bacon to make sure it is as long and thin as possible. This will help it to cook up faster and to have a better bite through.
Note: the bacon is not the main attraction in the recipe. It does a great job of holding the chicken thighs together and not letting the stuffing fall out during the cooking process.
It doesn't taste bad either so that's a plus ;-)
Wrap a single piece of bacon around the chicken thigh starting at one end and going around it a couple of times to finish at the other end.
Pull the bacon tight as you wrap.
Now use a 2nd piece of bacon to wrap around the ends of the stuffed chicken thighs. This will keep the hot bubbly cheese from running out freely.
Some will ooze out but most of it will stay in.
Stretch the bacon to make it longer and thinner.
Pull it tight as you wrap to make sure it holds well.
Give the outside of the chicken thighs another sprinkle of Jeff's original rub to finish them up.
Set up your smoker for cooking at about 250°F if possible.
I recommend apple wood or a fruit wood if you have it. If not, any good smoking wood will work great.
Once the smoker is preheated and ready, place the chicken thighs on the rack or you can use a Bradley rack or other wire mesh cooling rack for easy transporting to and from the smoker.
Tip: set the bradley rack or something similar on top of a disposable pan to keep the bacon grease and cheese from dripping down into your smoker.
Let the chicken thighs cook for about 1.5 hours or until they reach around 165°F in the center.
The cheese is just oozing out a little from under the bacon and they are delicious and ready to serve. Serve to your guests right away while they are still piping hot.
Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
- 8-12 chicken thighs (skinless and boneless)
- Buttermilk brine (recipe below)
- Jeff's original rub
- White cheddar (cut into sticks)
- Jalapeños (diced, fresh or pickled work great)
- Bacon (thin sliced)
Instructions
- Make buttermilk brine by combining ½ gallon buttermilk with ½ cup coarse kosher salt. Stir for 2 minutes or until dissolved.
- Place chicken into brine-safe lidded container.
- Pour buttermilk brine over chicken to cover.
- Place container with chicken into fridge for 4 hours during brining.
- Rinse chicken well to remove any residual salt and discard brine.
- Lay chicken thighs flat on cutting board.
- Season liberally with Jeff's original rub.
- Place ½ white cheddar cheese stick and 1 teaspoon of diced jalapeño onto chicken thigh
- Fold chicken thigh over.
- Wrap stretched piece of bacon around chicken thigh to hold it closed.
- Wrap another piece of bacon from end to end to keep the cheese from coming out once it melts.
- Smoke chicken thighs for about 1.5 hours at 250°F using apple or other smoking wood.
- Serve immediately.
Hello Jeff! One question— after you rinse the buttermilk brine off of the thighs, do you leave them wet or pat them dry before applying the rub?
I like to leave them wet, so the rub will stick better.
Jeff, I purchased all 3 of your recipes and love them. My question is can I make these cheesy bacon wrap chicken thighs ahead and them warm them up the next day. I want to make them and take them to a party the next day Thanks Russ
I made these last week and were great. I did pound them out a little and had know leakage. This week a new Cordon bleu adventure with your rub and BBQ sauce. How could you go wrong?
These are delish. Your seasoning makes ANY recipe da’ bomb! Could I use turkey thighs instead? What should be finish temp? Thank you for always making me hungry!
I made 30 of these for Christmas. They are absolutely the best thing I have ever made in the smoker. Sometimes I add a couple of strips of red onion in place of the pepper. Fantastic recipe.
How come the title say thighs an the teaser (in the letter) says wings? I almost did not read the recipe. Or did I miss something?
I caught this mistake almost as soon as it was sent.. the correction was sent out just shortly thereafter. Let me know if you have further questions about this.
HEY jeff ive been smokin chickin thighs for decades cant wait to try this recipe…….sounds and looks tasty weooooooooooooooooooo………..the orginal MOCKERNUTSZ..
where can i get the Bradley racks at, do you sell them.
Keith, unfortunately those are getting very difficult to find and they are often out of stock on Amazon. I have switched over to using Weber grill pans or cooling racks for this purpose and having great success.
I just got 2 bradley racks at my local home depot. look there
Kaleb, That’s great news as I did not know they were carrying them. Can you tell us what the price was?
Cabela’s has a 4 pack for $44.95
http://www.cabelas.com/product/BRADLEY-PK-SMOKER-RACKS/1791619.uts?productVariantId=3831700&WT.tsrc=PPC&WT.mc_id=GoogleProductAds&WT.z_mc_id1=03862790&rid=20&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-qbCgNS-1gIV6rztCh3_NQgrEAQYBCABEgIEovD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
I trying it tomorrow the cheesy smoked bacon wrap
Jeff is this an indirect cook or direct? I have a green egg
I recommend indirect cooking method using the plate setter on the BGE.
Jeff,
I couldn’t decide between these and the chicken breasts stuffed with cream cheese and jalepeno’s so I smoked them both.
Also my first time using the rub.
It got RAVE reviews from my family along with requests to cook them again. My wife doesn’t like that many smoked foods and she went on and on about how amazing the flavors were.
Thanks, I can’t wait to try something else!!!
Awesome recipe jeff. Anything with cheese and jalapenos always gets my thumbs up!
Did this recipe tonight and it was delish… Next time though I will gently pound the chicken thighs so they are easier to wrap and I will let the bacon warm to room temp before wrapping around the thighs. I had to resort to soaked wooden skewers to make it work. Otherwise the recipe would have beeb 5 stars!
How in the heck do you get the bacon to cook before the chicken gets all dried out???
The cheesy bacon wrapped chicken thighs were a huge hit with my friends and family last weekend. They could not stop talking about it and, in fact, I have been asked to make it again for the Super Bowl Party tomorrow!
Jeff, thighs are dark meat and I prefer white. Would this recipe work on boneless skinless breast? Thank you! Keep em coming!
You can certainly use chicken breast.. I would buy the breast tenders and flatten them out a little with a meat mallet so the thickness is consistent.
You can then stuff them, roll them up and wrap with bacon just like the boneless thighs.
The time should be about the same.. around 1.5 hours but you will want to watch them very carefully and take them off the smoker when they reach 165°F so they don’t dry out. It will also be very important to brine the meat for this same purpose.
Made this today. I think the rub + apple smoke ended up a little on the sweet side. If I did this again I might try the Texas rib (not tried it yet) and maybe pecan smoke.
Still, I liked it a lot as did the family. It’s on the “do again” list.
Sounds real good but in the original write up you say use a teaspoon of jalapeno and in the printable version it says 1/2 teaspoon. I know it would come down to personal preference, but it’s still an inconsistency that some might question.
Frank,
This has been corrected… Thank you for letting me know about that typo.