Double stuffed? Oh yeah! A traditional bacon and cheese stuffed jalapeño nestled inside a smoked and sauced mini-meatloaf!
This recipe will make 8 mini-meatloaves. You will need:
- 4-12 jalepenos
- 1# bacon
- 8oz cream cheese
- 1/4C cheddar cheese
- 1/4C BBQ rub
- 2# ground beef
- 1 egg
- 1/4C buttermilk
- 1/2C chopped onion
- 1/2CC BBQ sauce
- 2T BBQ rub
- A bit more BBQ sauce to baste at the end
Start by frying up the bacon into tiny bacon bits. Add about 1/2C of bacon bits to the cream cheese, cheddar cheese and 1/4C rub. Reserve the remaining bacon. Mix the bacon/cheese/rub mix together until well blended.
Cut the top off 4 of the jalepenos and cut the pepper in half lengthwise. Carefully remove the inside and just leave a shell. Stuff each of the 8 halves with the cheese mix. You will undoubtedly have more cheese than you need, so cut the remaining jalapeños in half, but leave the stems on. Stuff each as you did the first 8.
Place all the stuffed jalapeños in your smoker on the lowest setting for 3 hours. This will soften them up a bit and give your meatloaf an even greater smoke flavor. When done, reserve the stemmed halves for stuffed jalapeño snacks.
Mix the beef, egg, buttermilk, onion, BBQ sauce and 2T of rub together to form your meatloaf mix. Drop each stuffed pepper into the bottom of a mini-loaf pan and cover with 1/8th of the meatloaf mixture. Press well into pan and refrigeration for 30-60 minutes to firm up the loaves.
Remove the loaves from the pan and transfer to your smoker at 250F until 160F internal temp, about 3 hours. During the last 30 minutes, brush additional BBQ sauce on each loaf and sprinkle with the remaining bacon.
Enjoy!
Stuffed jalepenos. Those on the left with the stems are for straight up eating. The pan on the right will go in each meatloaf