Homemade chicken and pork meatballs wrapped in bacon with a spicy bite and a touch of maple syrup sweetness. Bacon Wrapped Meatballs are one of our most popular appetizers!
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When you set a plateful of bacon-wrapped anything, it's sure to catch the eye of everyone in your house or at the party. That's one reason why sweet and spicy Bacon Wrapped Meatballs are one of my favorite recipes to make whenever there's a get-together—holidays, game days, potluck dinner, you name it!
These little bacon-wrapped apps are so popular that we've even enjoyed them as a savory breakfast treat!
The homemade meatballs have a combination of two ground meats and sweet-spicy coating of brown sugar and maple syrup. They also have a spicy cayenne pepper kick. Serve a platter of toothpick-skewered, balcony, party meatballs with cold beer or other cold drinks.
Why you'll love this recipe
Bacon Wrapped Meatballs with brown sugar are homemade—and that means you get to control exactly what goes into them. That's a huge advantage over frozen, store-bought meatballs. The meat mixture is a savory blend of ground chicken and pork with spices and diced onion.
With a brown sugar and cayenne coating on the outside and a drizzle of sweet Vermont maple syrup, the meatballs bake up quickly in the oven. Hot, delicious, with a crispy wrapping of bacon and sweet-spicy caramelized sugar—YUM.
This is an amazing cocktail meatball recipe to serve at a Super Bowl party, as a holiday appetizer, or as a fun weekend comfort food snack.
New England maple syrup and bacon make them delicious!
If you're lucky enough to live in New England, make your sweet-savory bacon meatballs with pure maple syrup from your local sugarhouse and locally smoked and processed bacon. When products like these are made in small batches by companies who value quality ingredients, they make every recipe ten times more tasty.
Some of my favorite Vermont sugarhouses are Runamok, Morse Farm, Woods Vermont Syrup, and Sugarhill Sugar Works. If you don't live in Vermont, support a sugar house near you—look up your state on MapleSyrupFarms.org to find one.
As for bacon, I love the smoky flavor of Vermont's Dakin Farm bacon and New Hampshire's North Country Smokehouse.
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More Super Bowl Party Recipes
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🔪 How to make Bacon Wrapped Meatballs
Ingredients:
- Ground chicken and pork: The combination of these two meats gives you flavorful meatballs that are less greasy than beef meatballs.
- Onion: Not only does diced onion give the meatballs lots of flavor, onions also help keep the meatballs moist.
- Parsley: A little chopped parsley brings fresh, herby flavor to the meatballs.
- Parmesan cheese: Another savory ingredient to balance with the sweeteners. Use freshly grated Parm for the best flavor.
- Bacon: Use a good quality bacon without too much fat, for meatballs that look tempting and have a really good, smoky flavor.
- Brown sugar: The meatballs are rolled in brown sugar to create a caramelized coating once baked.
- Maple syrup: For a little extra sweetness and flavor. I prefer Grade A Dark or Very Dark maple syrup, as it's the most flavorful variety. And of course, use a local, pure maple syrup!
- Spices: Cayenne pepper gives the meatballs a good hit of heat; black pepper and salt round out the meatball mixture.
Make the meatball mixture
Mix together the ground meats, parsley, onion, and spices.
Make the meatballs
Use a cookie scoop or your hands to shape the mixture into balls.
Wrap them in bacon
Wrap each meatball in a short piece of bacon, and skewer them with toothpicks. Wrap the meatballs and chill them for 1 hour.
Coat the meatballs
Coat the bacon-wrapped meatballs in a small bowl of brown sugar blended with cayenne pepper, along with a drizzle of Vermont maple syrup, and put them on a baking sheet. Add a touch of maple syrup to each meatball.
Bake 'em
Bake the meatballs for about 30 minutes until they're cooked through and the bacon is crisp. Serve them while they're hot!
FAQs
For tender meatballs, be careful not to over-handle the meat mixture as this could create a tough texture. Combine the other ingredients together and then gently fold them into the ground meat. Also, when making meatballs with leaner meats like chicken or pork, it's a good idea to include diced onion. The onions help keep the meatballs juicy as they bake through.
The meat mixture should have a combination of wet ingredients (like milk or oil) and dry ingredients (like breadcrumbs). It's important to follow your recipe closely for the right ratios, so your meatballs will be balanced. Too much of either wet or dry ingredients will result in meatballs that fall apart or that bake up too dry. Shape the meatballs firmly so that they hold together on the baking sheet. If the meat mixture is warming up and difficult to handle, pop it in the fridge for 15 to 30 minutes to chill.
The easiest and fastest way to tell if meatballs are cooked is to cut one in half and check. The meat should have no pink remaining. You can also check the temperature with a digital thermometer—the meatball centers should read 165°F. When you shape the meatballs, it helps to use a spring-loaded scoop to make them all the same size. That way you know that they'll cook through at the same rate.
Tips:
- Soak the toothpicks in water for an hour before skewering the meatballs. This will keep the toothpicks from burning in the oven.
- Keep the bacon very cold until you're ready to wrap the meatballs. This will make it easier to separate and maneuver the strips.
- The meatballs are quite spicy—to bring the heat down use less cayenne pepper in the sugar mixture.
The recipe for Bacon Wrapped Meatballs is below. Here are a few other tasty party apps you'll want to make, too!
💬 How do you like this recipe? Leave a comment below.
📖 Recipe
Bacon Wrapped Meatballs (sweet and spicy)
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Equipment
- 35 toothpicks, soaked in water for at least 1 hour
Ingredients
For the meat mixture:
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1 pound ground pork
- ½ cup diced onion
- ⅓ cup chopped fresh parsley
- 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
To coat the meatballs:
- 1 pound smoked bacon strips
- ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¼ cup Vermont maple syrup
Instructions
Shape the meatballs:
- Set a wire rack into a baking sheet and cover the rack with foil. Poke holes through the foil in several places.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together by hand the chicken, pork, diced onion, parsley, Parmesan, the tablespoon of cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper. Mix just until ingredients are evenly combined.
- Use a cookie scoop or your hands to roll the meat mixture into 1½-inch balls.
Wrap the meatballs:
- Cut the bacon strips into thirds.
- Wrap a section of bacon around each meatball and skewer it in place with a soaked toothpick. Place it on the foil-covered rack.
- Repeat with the remaining bacon pieces and meatballs.
- Cover the meatballs loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Coat the meatballs:
- Preheat oven to 375° F. When the oven is hot, take the meatballs from the fridge.
- In a shallow dish mix together the brown sugar and the ½ tablespoon of cayenne.
- Roll each bacon-wrapped meatball in the brown sugar mixture, pressing the sugar to the surface to thoroughly coat each one. Place the coated meatballs back onto the foil-covered rack.
- Sprinkle leftover cayenne sugar over the tops of the meatballs. Drizzle Vermont maple syrup over the tops of the meatballs, about ½ teaspoon on each one.
Bake:
- Bake the meatballs for about 30 minutes, until they're cooked through to an internal temperature of 160° F.
- Use tongs to place the meatballs on a serving platter, and serve them while they're hot.
- Makes about 35 bacon-wrapped meatballs.
Notes
- Soak the toothpicks in water for an hour before skewering the meatballs. This will keep the toothpicks from burning in the oven.
- Keep the bacon very cold until you're ready to wrap the meatballs. This will make it easier to separate and maneuver the strips.
- The meatballs are quite spicy - to bring the heat down use less cayenne pepper in the sugar mixture.
Nutrition
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