Thanksgiving Smoked Fatty

If you love everything that is a part of a traditional Thanksgiving meal then this fatty recipe is for you. This fatty contains all the fixings of a thanksgiving meal wrapped in ground turkey and then contained in a bacon weave and topped with cranberry bbq sauce. It has an amazing combination of flavors and the cranberry bbq sauce really ties it all together nicely.

Fatties are a recipe that are perfect to get super creative with. It is very easy to try out different fillings, seasonings, and bbq sauces to create a unique creation that is all your own. This is exactly how this recipe was created. I am lucky to have a friend that enjoys smoking just as much as I do. We have gotten together on a number of occasions and just tried different recipes. One weekend we got together and brainstormed a few differetn varieties of fatties to try out. It would be too much to talk about all of them in one post so I am going to concentrate on the most creative one, the Thanksgiving Fatty.

Cooking Basics

Before preparing this fatty you will need to do a little work. We need to prepare some stuffing and some mashed potatoes. You can choose how much effort really goes into this. Once these pieces are done we are ready to begin assembling the fatty. There are a few tips I will discuss that will make this process easier as we go.

The first step to this will be to prepare the bacon weave. For this you will need 13 strips of bacon. The first tip to remember is to use tin foil to put your bacon weave on. This will make it easier to roll up at the end because you will have something to grab a hold of and pick up when you are trying to roll it. You will then lay 7 pieces of bacon next to one another in one direction. Once this is complete you will fold back the ends of every other piece and place the first piece of bacon across these. Then fold those pieces back over and fold the other pieces out of the way for the next strip. Continue this process until you have a nice weave as shown below.

Once this is done we need to roll out the ground turkey. This is where another handy tip comes in. Get yoruself a ziploc freezer bag to put your turkey in. Remove all the air and seal it. Now using a rolling pin or your hands spread out the meat so it is fairly flat and takes up all the room in the bag. Once this is done open up the freezer bag and slice down the middle of the top and then along the bottom. The picture below is of a different fatty we made but it is a good example of how to cut the bag. This helps because it is much easier to get the rectangle shape you need for the meat and it gives you something to grab as you are trying to roll it as well.

Now we have the 2 layers ready so we can start stuffing the fatty. The amounts we used in the filling are estimates. You want to fit in as much as you can and still be able to easily roll this up in the turkey when you are done. You want to put the filling in slightly form the end of the turkey you are going to start rolling and make sure to keep some space clear on each end so when you roll this up it does not overflow. Put down the mashed potato first then the stuffing and then put the cranberry sauce on top.

One we have our stuffing in place it is time to roll. Use the ziploc bag and roll up the turkey into a log starting the from the end that the filling is closer to. Once this is rolled up we sealed the ends to make sure the stuffing doesn’t leak out. Once this is complete use the ziploc bag to transfer the turkey over onto the bacon weave setting it near the side you want to start rolling from. Now use the tin foil and start rolling up the weave. Once this is done try to strtech any bacon you need to to ensure the entire thing is covered in the bacon. Turn it so the ends of the baocn are on the bottom and then sprinkle with poultry seasoning.

Everything is now prepared so it is time to get the smoker going. Preheat yrou smoker to 225 degrees. Maple goes well with pork and turkey so I would use that if you have it available. If not hickory and apple are another couple good choices of wood to use for this recipe. We are going to place the fatty on the smoker and cook it until the internal temperature reaches 145 to 150. This will take an hour or two. While this is happening we will make our cranberry bbq sauce following the instructions in the recipe below. When we have reached the 145 to 150 degree mark we are going to apply a generous amount of the bbq sauce to the fatty. We will then close the smoker back up and wait for the internal temperature to reach 165.

We will now remove the fatty off the smoker and allow it to rest for 10 minutes or so and then slice and serve.

Final Thoughts

This recipe is a really great for pit masters in training to really try to get creative with and make their own unique recipe. Try out this recipe to get a feel for the process then try out different flavor combinations. It was a lot of fun brainstorming this and I really loved how it turned out. When I try this again I think I would like to try having a little gravy to drizzle over the slices just to complete the Thanksgiving meal theme.

• Alternatives - I love recipes that you can use over and over again and change up to try out different flavors. This is definitely one of those recipes.

It is tough to go into details about alternatives on this recipe because so many exist but some exmaples of different fatties I have seen tried are, buffalo chicken, green chilies and cheese, breakfast, bcon explosion, buffalo chicken, and there are a ton more if you just look around on the internet. You can try to go for spicy or sweet by using different sauces and rubs.

If any of you decide to get creative please leave a comment with what you tried and how it turned out either on this post or any of the social media channels I have set up. I would love to hear about it.

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