Smoked Shotgun Shells

• doses: 24 shells
• tempo ativo: 1 hour
• tempo total: 6 hours

Ingredientes

2 boxes manicotti shells

2 packages, regular bacon

1 lb 90\10 ground beef

1 lb sweet Italian sausage links (5-6 sausages)

8 oz, farm cut shredded cheese

Sweet rub

1 cup sweet BBQ Sauce

Optional ingredients:

4 roasted hatch chilles, diced (sub jalapeño, bell, pablano, etc)

8 oz cream cheese (smoke the block for 20-30 min before adding to filling)

Instruções

Prepare the Shotgun Shells

Remove the Italian sausage from the casings. Mix the the Italian sausage, ground beef & shredded cheese in a large mixing bowl. If you are adding the hatch chilies or other peppers, mix those in as well.

Stuff the manicotti tubes completely with the mixture.

This filling will make approximately 24 shells, with 4 shells left over.

Wrap each shell in one piece of bacon covering the shell as much as possible.

Season all sides of the shells with sweet rub.

Place the shells on a sheet pan and rest in the refrigerator at least 4 hours or up to overnight. Anything less will result in a tough and chewy bite after these are cooked.

Prepare the Smoker

Prepare your smoker at a temperature of 300 degrees. I recommend a medium smoke wood for this cook such as hickory or pecan. You can do this on a charcoal grill - just make sure your charcoal has stopped smoking (at or nearly 100% white) before adding your wood chips, and don't put the shells directly over the fire (we're smoking, not grilling!).

Smoke the Shotgun Shells

Place the shotgun shells on a baking rack and place then into the smoker.

Smoke for 1 hour. At this point the ground meat will be above 165 internal temp and the shell will be tender.

After 1 hour, brush on the BBQ sauce.

Return to the smoker and allow the sauce to tack up for 10 - 15 minutes.

Remove from the smoker, slice and enjoy!

Notas

Made these with shredded burnt ends instead of ground beef, and yeah, do that if you can.

You can also lighten them up by adding veggies to the mix. I added a frozen mix of 'fire roasted' veggies from Costco, and they were delicious.