We take a strip of marinated turkey breast and lay it on a half a slice of bacon and roll that up around a ball of seasoned cream cheese to form these award winning turkey bacon roses. The roses are slow smoked until the turkey breast is cooked through and the bacon is nicely browned and then dunked in sweet BBQ sauce. The turkey bacon roses are smoked some more to tack up that sauce for this highly addictive appetizer.

Turkey Bacon Roses are an award winning appetizer that has one first place at BBQ events all over the midwest. My friends on the Midwest Corn Cookers competition team sponsored by the Iowa BBQ Store won a ton of competitions with this recipe. Others have replicated the recipe and it is no longer winning comps on the reg, but it was a monster on the competition circuit for quite a while.

Also, if you are ever in the Southern Iowa area, specifically Ottumwa Iowa, I highly recommend the Iowa BBQ Store with their massive selection of rubs and sauces as well as a meal at Warehouse BBQ just down the street. Make sure to order the kluckernuts!

If you are interested in other appetizers here are a few of our faves:

• Brie Cheese cooked on the Grill
• Stuffed Bell Peppers
• Stuffed Poblano Peppers
• Burnt End Bologna Bites
• Skirt Steak Pinwheels

Now let’s get after that recipe:

Turkey Bacon Roses Ingredients:

• 1 turkey breast, brined
• 1/2 gallon apple cider (substitute apple juice)
• 1/2 cup salt
• Meat mallet
• Plastic wrap
• Your favorite chicken/poultry seasoning
• 1 pound bacon
• 1 pound cream cheese
• 24 toothpicks
• Your favorite BBQ sauce

Makes 32 turkey bacon roses

Brine the Turkey:

The quickest way to do this is to buy boneless, skinless breasts, but to save money, we used a bone in breast with the skin on and did the trimming ourselves.

Initially, mix the apple cider (substitute apple juice) and salt until the salt is dissolved completely:

Then, pour over the turkey breasts in a large resealable bags:

Refrigerate the brining turkey for 4-12 hours

I don’t like to brine more than 12 hours. Beyond the 12 hour mark we transition from brining to curing.

Curing is how we make ham.

Remove the turkey breast from the brine and drain all the liquid, using paper towels to sop off the rest of the liquid:

Here’s what we will need for the rest of the recipe:

Skin and Trim the Turkey Breast:

Pull the skin of the turkey breast down from the cavity and remove from the meat.

Just like with ribs, paper towels are your friends here for grip.

Also, this will be a little harder than skinning ribs:

It’s harder than it looks and considerably more frustrating than ribs:

Carve Off the Breast Meat:

This is just like carving the turkey on Thanksgiving, but the turkey is raw:

Once the breasts have been carved out, trim into 4-5 inch long pieces about an inch wide:

Lay down a sheet of plastic wrap and bust out that meat mallet:

Pound the turkey strips into 5-6 inch pieces:

Season the turkey on both sides with the chicken/poultry rub:

The seasoning we used was from the Firebox Spice Co:

This seasoning is made locally in St. Louis by some friends of mine. I highly recommend it and the rest of their rub line

Add a couple tablespoons of that seasoning to the cream cheese and blend through:

Roll the cream cheese into 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch balls:

Cut the pound of bacon in half and now we can start the assembly

Assemble the Turkey Bacon Roses:

Lay a half slice of bacon down on each slice of seasoned/flattened turkey breast:

Then place a cream cheese ball at one end and roll the strips of meat up around the cream cheese into a rose with a cream cheese center:

Secure the bacon turkey roses in place with toothpicks so they will hold their shape :

Season the bacon turkey roses with more of the Firebox Spice Co chicken seasoning:

How to Smoke Award Winning Turkey Bacon Roses

Prepare the smoker, in this case my Green Mountain Grills Pellet Smoker with a target temp of 275F (+/- 25F) and slow smoke the bacon roses until the bacon browns up nicely:

This is an older model of the GMG line. They have redesigned their entire fleet of grills. Give them a look.

That side burner on the new models is a game changer!

Never buy a pellet grill without a side burner (unless it’s a travel grill)

Pour about a cup of that BBQ sauce into an oven safe pot and place on the grill to warm up:

Time to Sauce

Once the turkey bacon roses have browned up a bit, you can sauce them:

These took about 40-45 minutes to get browned like that.

Now dunk each one in that BBQ sauce:

Feel free to spoon some move BBQ sauce over the top of the turkey bacon roses:

Close the lid and let the sauce tack up and get all thick and ooey gooey.

These are done:

That’s one pretty pile of poultry, porcine perfection and I’m damn proud of that plate:

And a close up:

There are more pics of this down below the recipe card, including me eating one of those beauties

Award Winning Turkey Bacon Roses Rundown:

Some are wondering why the turkey? Just go with bacon. Bacon only is just bacon with cream cheese. It’s incomplete. The turkey actually brings this whole thing together without outshining the rest of the ingredients.

Sweet, savory, salty, creamy and oh so gooey. These have it all.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

Also, if you could leave us a great review with lots of stars that would be most appreciated!

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Award Winning Turkey Bacon Roses Recipe Card:

Print

Turkey Bacon Roses

Strips of turkey and bacon rolled up around a cream cheese ball to form a turkey bacon rose which is smoked and sauce to make an epic appetizer

Course Appetiser, Appetizer, Bacon, Finger Food

Cuisine American, American Fare, Appetizer, Bacon, Barbecue, BBQ, Turkey

Keyword Appetizer, Award Winning, Bacon Roses, Brined, Brined Turkey, Cream Cheese, Finger Food, Turkey, Turkey Bacon Roses, Turkey Breast, Turkey Brine

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes minutes

Equipment

• 1 Resealable plastic bag Gallon size
• 1 Meat mallet
• Plastic wrap
• 24-32 toothpicks

Ingredients

• ½ gallon Apple cider
• ½ cup Salt
• 1 Turkey breast
• 1 pound Bacon
• Your favorite chicken/poultry rub
• Your favorite BBQ sauce

Instructions

• Pour cider and salt into a gallon resealable bag and swish around until the salt is completely dissolved. Place the turkey breast inside and seal the top. Set the bag in the fridge for 4-12 hours.
• Remove the turkey from the brine, pat dry with paper towels and remove the skin. Carve off the breast meat and slice into 4-5 inch strips about an inch wide and 1/3-1/2 inch thick. Layer with plastic wrap and pound with a meat mallet until the meat is 5-6 inches long.
• Remove the plastic wrap and season both sides of the turkey strips with the seasoning
• Combine 2 tablespoons of the BBQ seasoning with the cream cheese and blend completely. Roll cream cheese into 1/2-3/4 inch balls. Repeat this step 24-32 times
• Slice the bacon in half and place a half slice of bacon on each strip of turkey. Place a ball of cream cheese on one end and roll up the meat around the cream cheese to form a rose. Secure the meat in place with a toothpick
• Season the award winning bacon turkey roses another dusting of that BBQ rub.
• Prepare the smoker for 275F (+/- 25F). Place the turkey roses an inch or so apart in the smoker. Fill an oven safe pot in the grill with a cup of BBQ sauce in it.
• Once the bacon has browned to where you like it (it took me about 40 minutes), dunk each of the turkey bacon roses into the BBQ sauce and place back on the grill and close the lid to allow the sauce to tack up (8-10 more minutes)
• Remove from the grill and serve

Video

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Author information

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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