Grilled Bacon on a Stick {30 Minutes}

Calling all bacon lovers! When you are looking for some fun finger-food for a neighborhood party or game day, these Grilled Bacon on a Stick will be your new “go-to” recipe. These two bite treats melt in your mouth and are crazy easy to make in less than 30 minutes.

I’m going to suggest to you now, just double the recipe. These flew off the grill so fast, I couldn’t keep up with the demand. No need for platters or serving dishes for this one unless you are making these ahead of time.

🍽️ Why This Works

Super Easy – This is one of the easiest things I have grilled. I sliced the bacon into one inch squares, stacked them, seasoned and grilled.

Different – Almost everyone loves bacon, and it was easy for folks to grab the skewer without getting their fingers greasy and eat the slices.

Various Bacon Options – Choose thick cut from packaging like we did or pile several thin pieces of bacon on a skewer stacked as shown in the photos or cut bacon in half and weave the bacon on the skewer which will cook a bit faster.

🥓 Ingredients

Bacon – So, in the interest of full disclosure, I was looking to have my butcher slice some extra thick bacon for me, but since I waited until the last minute, he ran out. I decided to use some prepackaged sliced ones that I picked up at the grocery store. Notice the packaging that is the thick version vs the Oscar Meyer Center Cut.

Note: I found it easier to work with the packaged bacon where the slices were stacked right against each other. Basically, it is “pre-stacked” for you, which makes this process go much faster.

Bourbon – This not only adds a bit of sweetness to the bacon, it helps the BBQ rub to stick. The alcohol cooks off, so there is no need to worry.

BBQ Rub – Use your favorite rub. I picked up some Meat Church Gospel that worked just perfectly!

🔥 Instructions

Step One: Cut the bacon into one inch slices. Try to keep the stacks together.

Step Two: Stick a sturdy short skewer through a one inch high stack of bacon.

Step Three: Pour the bourbon in one glass bowl, and the BBQ rub in the other.

Step Four: Dip the bacon into the bourbon and then into the BBQ rub. The rub should stick to the meat.

Step Five: Place the bacon on a stick on a cast iron skillet.

Step Six: Set up the grill for direct heat at 325 degrees. Place the skillet on the grate and cook for about 20 minutes, turning them every five minutes.

Note: Watch this closely! It is very easy for the cast iron to heat up too much and quickly burn the bacon.

🍳 Equipment

There are a couple of options for you when grilling these up.

1. Quarter Sheet Pan with Rack will allow the bacon to cook and drip the grease into the bottom of the pan so the bacon doesn’t sit in the grease.
2. Cast Iron Skillet works great as it gives the bacon a great little charred exterior but it will sit in a little bit of grease. You can lift the skillet and scoop the grease out with a spoon like a gravy ladle or turkey baste it out.

We’ve used both for this and it works fine compared to when I did the Twisted Bacon, the cast iron left a burned mess while the quarter sheet pan worked great.

**Just don’t cook it straight on the grill as the grease will drip and cause flare ups like crazy.

🥓 Variations

Using the same technique, you can make this simple recipe into a couple of different and impressive appetizers.

Brown Sugar Bacon on a Stick – Just like we used the brown sugar and cayenne on the Twisted Bacon, you can either lightly sprinkle on or you can go ahead and make the candied bacon version. For the Brown Sugar Bacon version make up a mixture of ¾ cup brown sugar to 1-2 tsp of paprika (or you can leave the paprika off) but then using your fingers, heavily coat the bacon with the brown sugar on all sides before grilling. This works great if you will weave the bacon on a skewer.

Candied Bacon on a Stick – Similar to what we did above, you will use ¾ cup of brown sugar and coarse ground pepper this time. This method works best if you weave it on the skewer, then sprinkle with pepper and then pat the brown sugar onto the bacon. As it cooks, it will start to caramelize. The key here is to get the glaze from the sugars to caramelize the exterior. You can do it with the stacked bacon as well, but it only caramelize the exterior portions of the bacon, not the inside where it touches when stacked. It all works.

The candied bacon is SIMILAR to what we did on our original recipe but we didn’t PACK the sugar on, in the photos you’ll notice we sprinkled and dipped them in and a lot of sugar still falls off. Making the candied requires it to STICK and create that glaze. Simple but just want to make sure you know the difference.

Savory Bacon – Serve up a savory version by sprinkling the stacks with your favorite herb combinations. We did this when we made our How to Smoke Bacon a few times and it just adds so much unexpected flavor! If you want something completely different, try that version.

❗ Expert Tips

Don’t worry about spraying the skillet with oil. The bacon fat will render quickly, you are using the cast iron option.

But the bacon that is sliced and packaged into a rectangular block. Many of the grocery store bacon is “fanned” to keep the packages laying flat, but that is harder to stack.

Bacon on a Stick is best served with seasoning. As this is made of a stack of thin slices, there is a lot of surface area for the bourbon and the rub to adhere.

I also grilled this on a raised baking rack on a sheet pan. For this, I used indirect heat in the grill and the fat rendered and dropped into the sheet pan. I actually thinks it cooks better this way and it doesn’t sit in the fat and risk burning.

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