Bacon-wrapped pellet smoker pork tenderloin recipe
This easy campground recipe turned out excellently and combined a taste of our travels with a carb-friendly treat. And bacon. Because who doesn’t love bacon? Today we’re going to smoke a pork tenderloin but first, we’re wrapping it in bacon.
It’s so simple to make this but remember a while back I bought a RecTeq 340 portable smoker specifically so I could take it on our journeys. That got stalled only because we had to put our Lectric eBikes in the trunk but we’re no longer doing that as we purchased a replacement Curt bike rack so the bikes could go on the back of the trailer once again.
Now the bed of the truck is available for the smoker.
Another thing that I did here was utilize one of those products that we bought at a Harvest Hosts stop. In this case we went to Leaman’s Green Applebarn in Freeland, MI on our trip through Michigan. They are famous for donuts and coffee but they also have other things including bacon maple jam. That was a key to the success of this dish.
The recipe
Start with a pork tenderloin
Bathe it in a glaze of some sort. In my case I used a silicone brush to coat it with bacon maple jam
Wrap the whole thing with bacon. In my case I used the green Chile bacon because, well, we are in New Mexico after all. I used toothpicks to hold the bacon on and wrapped it completely. It took about half a pound of bacon per tenderloin.
Light up your smoker to 225 degrees. Cook for about two hours or until a meat probe indicates that the meat is 145° inside.
Tent the meat with aluminum foil and keep going for about half an hour. You can use the drippings in the aluminum foil to make a sauce if you want and you will want.
Here’s where I goofed up - I followed the recipe in RecTeq’s app which wanted to cook the meat at 375° and it claimed it would take three hours. That was nonsense. It only took an hour so I had to figure out what to do for the next two hours until my friends arrived.
Conclusions
Honestly this was dead simple. Brush the glaze on the pork, put some bacon on and smoke it. But it was also incredibly delicious and even though I followed the app at the wrong temperature, the pork was still delightfully tender and delicious. It could have been juicier because I had to hold it for so long but it still wasn’t bad.
That bacon plus the glaze was magical and the green Chile bacon had just the slightest kick to it.
This would be a great accompaniment to corn bread, which we also made. That was simply Jiffy corn bread mix.
As for beer, if I were able to get my hands on some Anderson Valley Huge Arker that would have been the perfect pairing with this slightly sweet and salty pork.
