Bacon Cheeseburger Fatty

This recipe uses ground beef stuffed with cheddar cheese and shaped into a log. The beef is then wrapped by a bacon weave and smoked until cooked and gooey! Great tailgate food!

A couple weeks ago I posted a recipe for Atomic Buffalo Turds. Many people laughed at the name of that delicious smoked snack food. Well here today, I present to you another incredible recipe with an bizarre name. Like the Atomic Buffalo Turds, I cannot take credit for this name and they are found all over the net.

So what is this wonderful food I am speaking of?

A FATTY!

What is a fatty you ask? A fatty is ground beef or pork shaped into a log. Usually it is stuffed with any number of things (cheese, veggies, more meat). The fatty is then smoked in a smoker. Once done, the fatty is sliced and served on it’s own or a thick slice is put on a bun for a fabulous smoked fatty burger.

They taste incredible and over Easter I made a couple of fatties. Today’s recipe is a bacon cheeseburger fatty. The ground beef is stuffed with cheddar cheese and wrapped with a bacon weave. The bacon weave is essentially a sheet of bacon. Who wouldn’t want a sheet of bacon!?!?

So, if you have a smoker, make sure you give this fatty a try. It has phenomenal flavour and is great to add one of these to the smoker while you are smoking ribs, or a brisket. This the perfect starter for any meatsravaganza!

Directions along with photos

To make the bacon weave, lay eight bacon strips, side by side, vertically. Horizontally, weave the top bacon strip through the vertical strips. For the remaining horizontal strips, pull back every other vertical bacon strip (see the picture above). Lay a bacon strip down up snug to the horizontal strips. Pull the vertical strips back down.

Do the same thing again, but with the other vertical bacon strips. Do this for the rest of the bacon until you have a complete bacon weave.

Roll or pat out the ground beef to the same size shape as the bacon weave.  Lay the cheese along the middle of the square of ground beef.

Spread the BBQ spice rub across all the beef. Recipe for the spice rub is found here.

Roll up the ground beef into a log. Tuck in the sides to make sure there is no opening for the cheese to melt out of.

Lay the beef on the bacon weave and wrap the weave around the beef log.

Smoke the fatty in a smoker set to 250F for about 2 1/2 hours.

Remove when the internal temperature is at 165F.

Bacon Cheeseburger Fatty

A smoked meatloaf stuffed with cheddar and wrapped in a bacon weave
4.17 out of 5
6 reviews
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This recipe uses ground beef stuffed with cheddar cheese and shaped into a log. The beef is then wrapped by a bacon weave and smoked until cooked and gooey! Great tailgate food!
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Servings: 4 people

Ingredients

  • 16 slices of bacon
  • 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef
  • 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
  • 2 tbsp Steve's BBQ rub

Instructions

  • To make the bacon weave, lay eight bacon strips, side by side, vertically. Horizontally, weave the top bacon strip through the vertical strips. For the remaining horizontal strips, pull back every other vertical bacon strip (see the picture above). Lay a bacon strip down up snug to the horizontal strips. Pull the vertical strips back down. Do the same thing again, but with the other vertical bacon strips. Do this for the rest of the bacon until you have a complete bacon weave.
  • Roll or pat out the ground beef to the same size shape as the bacon weave. Lay the cheese along the middle of the square of ground beef. Spread the BBQ spice rub across all the beef.
  • Roll up the ground beef into a log. Tuck in the sides to make sure there is no opening for the cheese to melt out of. Lay the beef on the bacon weave and wrap the weave around the beef log.
  • Smoke the fatty in a smoker set to 250F for about 2 1/2 hours. Remove when the internal temperature is at 165F.

Notes

Link to the BBQ Rub found here - https://www.theblackpeppercorn.com/steves-basic-bbq-rub/

Categories

This recipe uses ground beef stuffed with cheddar cheese and shaped into a log. The beef is then wrapped by a bacon weave and smoked until cooked and gooey! Great tailgate food!

Did you try this recipe?

Leave a comment and let me know how it turned out. Or, take a picture to share on Instagram and tag me @theblackpeppercorn.

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Recipe Rating




29 comments

  • Mine ended up at a whopping 4 1/2 lbs and ground chuck and ground pork were in mine. Used roughly 24oz of bacon. Can’t wait til it’s done!

    • Reply
  • 5 stars
    doing a 3lb fatty tonight but instead of a rub I am using taco seasoning i think it will turn out great.

    • Reply
  • 5 stars
    I made these tonight. Smoker temp was 250, pulled with an internal temp of 165-170. Only took about 1 hour 15 minutes to reach temp. The bacon did not seem to cook through properly. How could I prevent this next time?

    • Reply
    • i use a hand held torch to crisp up the bacon

      • Reply
    • 4 stars
      Ramp up the temp for the last 20 mins i’d say or grill direct over the heat source for the last few mins and baste with bbq sauce.

      • Reply
  • How about a rotisserie fatty?
    It might not be so smokie but I bet very juicy.

    • Reply
  • This looks so good but I don’t have a smoker… is there a way to cook it on a charcoal grill or a oven?

    • Reply
    • I have not tried it in the oven or charcoal grill, but I assume it could work, although the results would be a bit different. If using the charcoal grill, make sure you use indirect heat. For the oven, the temp should be higher – I would think around 350F or so.

      • Reply
  • I was wondering … I am planning to prep this 2 days before actually taking it to a BBQ and getting it cooked in a smoker … I plan on keeping it chilled in the fridge while wrapped in aluminum foil … on cooking day, can I still keep it in the foil and pop it in the smoker or does it need to be free of the foil?

    • Reply
    • Hey. You will need to remove the foil when it goes into the smoker. It would cook fine in the foil, but the foil would block the smoke and would not allow the smoke to penetrate into the meat. You would end up with a cooked fatty the does not have much of a smokey flavor.

      • Reply
    • I would roll it up in plastic wrap for the fridge, and obviously remove it when going to the smoker. If left too long the salt in the bacon can react with the aluminum.

      • Reply
  • Steve,

    Just an FYI. The original fatty, made up in the spur of the moment about 15-20 years ago was composed of a 1 lb log of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage. There have been others that would use the sage sausage (mighty good), italian sausage (so so – doesn’t really take smoke too good), hot sage sausage (awesome) among others.

    But its always, ALWAYS been cooked on a smoker. It has to have that low and slow smokey taste and a bit of a smoke ring. I know I’m late commenting on this, but still – some things are worth commenting on.

    Go look on the brethren’s website (http://www.bbqbrethren.com), and do a search on the fatty. There are thousands of comments. Its a barbecue rite of passage, you could say.

    • Reply
    • 5 stars
      Hey! If doing it in the oven they could always add smoke flavor to the meat!

      • Reply
      • Very true!

        • Reply
  • Hey — This is your wife speaking — if you can weave bacon that beautifully, you can learn to braid your daughter’s hair. I’ll teach you – Mary will be thrilled to be able to have her hair some other way than just brushed with a headband!
    😛
    Oh, and the fattys are amazing!

    • Reply
  • Can this be done in the oven instead of a smoker? If so, how do you update the recipe?

    • Reply
    • It could easily be done in an oven and the temperature would need to increase to cook through and crisp the bacon. #50F for about an hour. If the bacon hasn’t crisped up by then you could increase it to 425 for the last 5-10 minutes of cooking.

      • Reply
  • I love this idea…looks so falvorful the burger covered with bacon. Awesome pictures Steve.
    Hope you are having a wonderful week 🙂

    • Reply
  • Holy moly. In the dictionary under man’s food it say see this.

    • Reply
  • This looks incredible. Great weave job and really nice photo. I can’t even imagine how good this tastes.

    • Reply
  • Um…yum!! Where has this been all my life?!

    • Reply
  • Ever since I heard of the fattie I have been trying to get the hubs to make it. He is the king of the grill around here. I guess I will have to prod him again with this post-cheese inside does sound like a winner. Great presentation on the weaved bacon-yum!

    • Reply
  • holy moly! that fatty looks seriously good + amazingly decadent. want!

    • Reply
  • Beautiful bacon weave! Nicely done. You did know that I was going to comment on this one, didn’t ya? Love fatties, just can’t do them alot as they are…fatty. Yours looks great. I did one on my blog way back in November, but you’ve reminded me its time to do one again!

    http://griffinsgrub.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/how-to-roll-a-fattie/

    • Reply
    • haha – yeah – I knew you would comment. Thanks for linking to your fatty. I checked it out and it looked awesome!! Loved the stuffing

      • Reply
  • Sure – make us fat! But oh what a way to go!!!!!
    BACON! Mmmmmm – I love bacon!
    THANKS!

    • Reply
    • You are too funny! But you know, Carol, that people who subscribe to the low-carb diets would say that if you ate this you would lose weight. Let`s try and find out!!! 🙂

      • Reply
      • I am on a low carb diet and going to try it. It looks great. I have recently smoked bacon in the fridge waiting to be sliced. I will use it for this. It looks perfect for low carb eaters.

        • Reply
  • Wow! Now that’s decadent. I bet that’s sinfully delicious!

    • Reply

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