Grilling season is upon us! Well, in theory. Spring is being a big time tease here in Colorado, and we had both 72 degrees and snow this week. Grilling and smoking meat is my absolute favorite, weather be damned.

When we were living in Spokane, we ate dinner almost every Sunday with some great family friends. After years of making and enjoying meals together, I brought this chicken one day. Our friend took one bite, and with a completely serious look on his face said, “Why are you just now making this? Why haven’t we been eating this for years??” He was so betrayed that I had accidentally hid this little gem from him for so long. Don’t be like me. Make this recipe and make your friends fall in love with you.

I haaaate handling raw chicken. It causes me to wash my hands 300 times and douse my entire kitchen in bleach. But this chicken is SO GOOD that even my germaphobe self can get through it to make it.

Jalapeño Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Grilled Chicken

Start by marinating your chicken, in my super complicated and super secret chicken marinade- Italian dressing. It is the BEST grilled chicken marinade. I usually leave mine overnight, but a few hours before will do in a pinch.

When you’re ready to fire up the grill, char your peppers. This deepens their flavor! For ease, I just pop them under the broiler for a few minutes. You could smoke them, grill them, or even roast them over the flame of a gas stove. You could skip this step and it’s still plenty delicious. But a quick char under the broiler is easy, fast, and kicks the deliciousness up a notch.

A little char brings out the flavor. 

Let the peppers cool until you can handle them. Cut off the tops and split in half.  Decide if you want to seed them and cut out the membranes. I love spicy food, so I usually leave mine intact, and scoop the innards out of them for any guests.

Lop off the top.

Slice in half lengthwise.

And scrape out the membranes and seeds to cut down on the spice. Without the membranes and seeds, the chicken really isn’t spicy at all.

Now, to minimize the amount of time your hands are all grodee with raw chicken, and the amount of things you have to touch with grodee hands, arrange all of your chicken supplies. Get everything all ready, so you can just be gross all at once and then clean up all at once.

If raw chicken pictures gross you out, now would be a good time to speed scroll to the recipe.

Grab you a piece o’ chicken and butterfly that bad boy. Slice it almost in half. Leave about 1/2 an inch unsliced so your chicken doesn’t fall apart.

Open it up like a weird chicken book.

Take one half of a jalapeño and fill with about 1 oz of cream cheese.

Top with the other half of the jalapeño. I dare you to eat that. No, don’t. Your hands are super gross from the chicken.

Place your stuffed jalapeño  inside of the chicken, snug against the butterflied center.

Close your strange chicken book.

It’s bacon time. Starting at the fat end of the chicken, secure one end of the bacon with a toothpick. Wrap that bacon tightly around the chicken. Not so tight that the bacon rips, but tight enough to keep everything together.

When you reach the end of the first slice of bacon, grab a second slice and secure that slice to the end of the first with a toothpick.

Finish wrapping the second piece and secure with a 3rd toothpick. That’s 3 toothpicks. Remember that when you are serving the chicken so you can remove all of the toothpicks and no one gets a toothpick in the throat.

Grill on high for about 20 minutes per side. Avoid flipping the chicken more than once. Set it down and LEAVE it, so the bacon can cook and adhere to the chicken. Cook until the center of the chicken reaches 160 degrees.

I served ours up with a salad and some sweet potato fries, and it almost made me forget that it’s currently snowing.

This is a winner, folks. You’ll look like a grilling expert. Move over, Bobby Flay.  Make it and wow your family and friends!