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Cooking up a barbecue feast for your friends and family can (and will) be an all day affair. Depending on the size of your cut, briskets and pork butts can take every bit of 18 hours to slow smoke to perfection. As much as I like starving myself all day in anticipation of the gluttony that’s soon to come, my willpower tends to falter somewhere around the noon hour. Since the smoker is already chugging away, there’s no need to power up the oven for that well deserved mid-day snack. Instead, I prefer to toss in a few stuffed jalapeno peppers…especially the ones dubbed “Atomic Buffalo Turds”!!!
These smokey treats are really easy to prepare, and you may even have most of the ingredients hanging out in your fridge already:
12 fresh jalapeno peppers
12 slices of bacon
24 little smokies
1 package of cream cheese (room temperature)
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
Sweet barbecue rub
To start the construction of the atomic buffalo turds, you’ll first want to wash and trim the jalapeno peppers. I highly recommend wearing plastic food prep gloves during the trimming portion to keep the jalapeno juices from soaking into your skin, so proceed with caution if you choose not to heed my advice. Trimming these guys is a relatively simple task. Simply chop the stem off and slice the pepper lengthwise to expose the seeds and vein. Using a spoon, scrape out the white vein and rinse under water to wash away the seeds. The cream cheese will ultimately counteract the burn from the peppers, so leave a good amount of the inner membrane in tact if you want to feel the heat.
In a mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, paprika and cayenne pepper. Using a butter knife, or a pastry bag, fill each jalapeno half with a generous portion of the cream cheese mixture.
Top each one of the jalapeno “boats” with a little smokey.
Wrap each of the smokey topped jalapenos with a half slice of bacon, making sure that the seam is directly on top of the little smokey. Secure the wrap by inserting a toothpick straight down through the overlapping edges of the bacon all the way through the little smokey. Stop just short of going through the pepper though, that way the cream cheese doesn’t leak out through the hole.
Since bacon already contains a good amount of sodium, you’ll want to season the buffalo turds with a sugar based rub. Cowtown Rubs are among the staples in my spice rack, so I went with their Sweet Spot Rub this time around. If you’re the do-it-yourself type, a nice blend of brown sugar and cayenne pepper works great on these bad boys as well.
Cooking the buffalo turds is a matter of getting the bacon done to your liking. My preference is smoke at 250 degrees for about an hour and a half. At this point the bacon isn’t overly crispy, but it’s definitely cooked enough to be bite through. If you prefer a crispier bacon, then I’d suggest kicking the temperature up to 300 degrees for about an hour. You’ll want to keep a close eye on the peppers though. If they overcook, then they’ll loose their stability and your turds will spill out all over your smoker.
Once your buffalo turds are cooked to your liking, remove them from the grill to cool down a bit before serving. At this point I would typically top them with a generous helping of Blues Hog Barbecue Sauce cut with a little cran-apple juice, but this time around I happened to have a bottle of hot raspberry sauce from the folks over at Traverse Bay Farms. I used this sauce a few weeks ago on some pulled pork sandwiches and was pleasantly surprised as to how well the raspberry flavor melded with the smoked pork, but this blew the sandwich out of the water. The flavor of the smokey jalapeno matches perfectly with the sweet fruity sauce, and of course it’s heat is in good company with the medley of peppers tasted in each bite. A spoonful of sauce on each turd and you can guarantee these tasty treats will disappear in no time flat!
21 Responses to “Appetizer Recipe: Atomic Buffalo Turds”
Jason, those look amazing,they’ve got everything a person could want in an appetizer. I’m definitely making them this weekend. Great idea!
@smokinmanbbq – I can’t take credit for the original recipe, but they certainly are delicious!!!
Once again astounding! You guys are incredible!
Bacon, Sausage, Cheese, and Jalapenos! And… there’s fruit in there. So… it’s all healthy! Right?
[...] Would you eat something called a Atomic Buffalo Turd? [...]
Nice job, Jason!
We tried these last week. They are definitely made for the smoker.
We tried grilling them. #fail #1
We used thick cut bacon. #fail #2
Ha! Next time I’ll get it right.
@Brian – Grilling anything that’s wrapped in bacon is going to be tough. The grease drips down onto the coals or burners and causes flare ups. It can be done, but requires constant attention!
Trying these out today for a Smokey and Bandit / Brickyard watching party. So far so good!!
Awesome and absurd. Love it.
You can’t beat ABT’s for a snack while waiting for the ribs, butt and chicken to cook! Well, there are fatties. And Armadillo eggs. Let’s just call it a 3 way tie:)
I was never a fan of ‘lil smokies’. I like to simply cut the top off of the pepper and then stuff it with cheese. Leave a seed or two in there for ‘effect’.
I seen this recipe & just had to try it. The ABT were frick”n awesome. I smoked mine with apple and the last 15 min I spread on a little JD hickory BBQ sauce. They were out of this world. Next i will be trying the Bacon Explosion.
the ABT’s at the BBQ Shack in Paola (which I assumed were the originals) use water chestnuts in place of the little smokies. I would love to try the smokies – but the chestnuts were very good in the recipe.
[...] this page was mentioned by Dan J. (@bibowski), BBQ Addicts – Jason (@bbqaddictsjason), Eat Me TV (@eatmetv), mamaliga (@mamaliga), trentjones (@trentjones) and others. [...]
[...] Appetizer Recipe: Atomic Buffalo Turds (bbqaddicts.com) [...]
Wow, I made these yesterday afternoon. I raised my cholesterol and lit up my mouth. These are GREAT. This is going to be a hit at my house.
I made this recipe over the weekend. That red raspberry BBQ sauce was amazing. It added an entirely different dimension to food and the entire recipe.
@John – I’m a BIG fan of that raspberry sauce! We tried it on pulled pork sandwiches the same day we did the ABTs. Amazing!!!
I make something something very similar using shrimp instead. I use a piece of foil to limit the amount of direct heat/flame due to flair-up from the bacon. Constant attention and turning is still required, unless you like them extra crispy!!!!
check it
I used smoked paprika in the cream cheese. Adds a nice touch. It would also be nice if there was a link to print these articles that formats everything nicely. I love trying your recipes!
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