John has been contemplating purchasing a Weber smoker for quite some time. The decision was made easier by Amazon, which until recently did not offer free shipping to Hawaii. The first thing we smoked was a fresh turkey breast. It turned out to be easy and delicious, but we didn’t take any pictures or notes, so we’ll do that another time. This recipe comes from Jeff’s “smoking-meat” blog. We’ve made it a couple of times and it is so tasty. It features a nice hint of smoke, a good barbecue sauce, and tender chicken tucked inside smokey bacon.
Buy thin or regular cut bacon so that it has a chance to render and crisp up a bit while in the smoker. I cut my bacon strips into three even pieces but if you have larger pieces of chicken you might cut the bacon in half.
We had one lonely piece of bacon left and a couple of potatoes lying around so into the smoker they went.
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs trimmed of any visible fat
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- ⅓ cup of your favorite dry rub
- 1 pound bacon
- your favorite barbecue sauce (we like Trader Joe's)
- wooden skewers
- Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, about 6 pieces per chicken thigh ( 8 if you are using a large chicken thigh)
- Place chicken pieces in a Ziplock bag and pour about 3 tablespoons canola oil into the bag. Mix chicken and oil so that the chicken is well coated. Add ⅓ cup of your favorite dry rub to the bag. Massage the bag well so all the chicken pieces are evenly coated with dry rub. Place the bag in your refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
- Place a piece of bacon on your work surface, top with a piece of marinated chicken, roll and push onto the skewer. Continue to add more bacon & chicken pieces to the skewer, leaving enough space on the skewer for turning during smoking. If you leave a bit of space between each piece of chicken, the bacon tends to crisp up better than if you push the meat together tightly.
- Set up your smoker for cooking at 250 degrees. Smoke the chicken for about 1 hour, brush generously with barbecue sauce, and smoke for about 30 minutes longer before removing the from the smoker.
