This bacon explosion is for the birds! It is made with turkey instead of pork. It’s almost like a yummy jazzed up and rolled up meatloaf that is smoked to yummy perfection.

At long last, the recipe is finally here! Ever since I posted about our poultry grill-off, people have been asking for the winning recipe. Can you blame them?
It has a lot of things going for it. First of all, it is award winning after-all. It did beat out the competition at our event.
Secondly, if you’ve been around for long, you know that my brother K.C. is the grill/smoker master of the family. If he made it, there is a good chance it has been researched and tweaked and perfected.
Then there’s the name, bacon explosion, it just sounds like something you have to try!

The problem was there was so much going on during our grill-off. I was busy explaining the judging rules and helping the contestants get their meats plated and cut into bite sized pieces for sampling. So, I didn’t really get any pictures of the finished products.
Now if that isn’t a head slapper, especially for a food blogger! So though I was able to post about the fun day we had, it was hard to post the recipes of the top entries.
Luckily we are always happy to have people over and my brother and Matt are always happy to light the grills. So we hosted a mini do-over. A smaller group and no judging sheets, but the top two poultry recipes were made and photographed.
I still had a swarm of hungry folks over my shoulder, so the pictures aren’t the best. But believe me both the char siu chicken and this turkey bacon explosion are worth making!
This turkey bacon explosion is a poultry twist on K.C.’s now famous bacon explosion. Normally he does pork on pork, but we went turkey for his entry in the poultry competition.

Both are really good. Just think about it, crispy crumbly bacon rolled up in ground turkey or pork and wrapped in a bacon weave then slow smoked.
Add a little of your favorite rub and BBQ sauce you are are really in business, It makes for a fun presentation and is sure to be a hit with all of the bacon lovers in your life.
Turkey Bacon Explosion

This bacon explosion is for the birds! It is made with turkey instead of pork. It’s almost like a yummy jazzed up and rolled up meatloaf that is smoked to yummy perfection.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds bacon
- 2 pounds ground turkey
- 2 teaspoons of your favorite BBQ rub
- 2 cups BBQ sauce (a thinner glaze type sauce works best)
Instructions
- Place ground turkey in a gallon zipper topped bag and press into a square. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Cook a pound of bacon until crisp. Crumble and set aside.
- Basket weave the other pound of bacon. Sprinkle with rub.
- Carefully open the zip top bag and cut down the sides. Invert the square of ground turkey onto the bacon weave, season with half of the BBQ rub. Sprinkle crumbled bacon over the turkey. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce.
- Roll ground turkey and cooked bacon into a tight roll. Then roll the basket weaved bacon over the ground pork roll. (You can kind of see in the video, KC uses the bacon weave to get the turkey roll started, but leaves then puts the bacon weave back down. Once the turkey is rolled up, he rolls it back towards him bringing the bacon weave with it.)
- Place in low smoker for a couple of hours, or until it reaches 160 F. Or you could grill it over indirect heat if you don’t want to worry about smoking it. KC. has done this on his gas grill, his smoker and a charcoal grill and all of them work great.
- Once the bacon explosion reaches temperature, spread remaining BBQ sauce over it and cook until warm and yummy.
- Let rest for a few minutes, then slice and serve!
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 631Total Fat: 40gSaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 25gCholesterol: 155mgSodium: 1824mgCarbohydrates: 21gFiber: 0gSugar: 16gProtein: 45g
All nutritional information is estimated and will depend on the exact ingredients you use.

A Day in the Life on the Farm
Sunday 3rd of June 2018
Meatloaf on the grill....genius.
Carlee
Tuesday 5th of June 2018
Isn't it? Thanks!
Laurie - Country Link
Tuesday 6th of September 2016
Looks great! Thank you for sharing at the September Country Fair Blog Party! We enjoy seeing your posts. Laurie - Co-Host
Carlee
Tuesday 6th of September 2016
Thanks, Laurie!
Unknown
Sunday 21st of August 2016
I have been waiting with bated breath for this! My husband is the griller/smoker and we talked about this after your cook-off, now I can clue him in on Matt's recipe. It looks so good, and I'm sure that it will taste even better! Thanks for the "do-over" so you could show us how scrumptious it looked!
Carlee
Monday 22nd of August 2016
It's a tough life when you "have" to remake good food! I hope you love it!
Big Rigs 'n Lil' Cookies
Sunday 21st of August 2016
We have two different big weekends in September where my husband wants to smoke an impressive piece of meat for company. I think he needs to make this! Sounds so good!
Carlee
Sunday 21st of August 2016
This would be perfect! We really like the original one with ground pork but the turkey version was perfect for the poultry grill-off!
Unknown
Saturday 20th of August 2016
Fantastic idea! I am a pork lover and sounds great with turkey too! Yum! Thanks for the recipe! Michelle
Carlee
Sunday 21st of August 2016
It's hard to go wrong with the pork version, but this worked perfectly for the poultry grill-off! So perfect it won!! Thanks!