Smoked Meatballs

I read a great post from The Deerslayer’s Wife for goat cheese stuffed venison meatballs and knew I wanted to do something similar.  I didn’t go as exotic as goat cheese and venison.  I stuck with a standard smoked meatball stuffed with mozzarella cheese.

The combination of smoked meat and melted cheese made me very happy.

These smoked meatballs started with a pound of ground chuck and a pound of ground pork.

I gently mixed the beef and pork then divided the meat into tablespoon sized portions.

I flattened out each “future meatball” and added a little barbecue seasoning and a couple pieces of mozzarella cheese.

The meatballs got rolled back up and the outside got another shot of bbq rub.

The Weber kettle was set up with indirect heat with a few chucks of hickory for smoke.

The meatballs were smoked for about 30 minutes before I had to open the lid and take a peek 🙂

I figured as long as I had the lid open I might as well brush the smoked meatballs with some bbq sauce.  I went with Sweet Baby Ray.

After another 15 minutes the smoked meatballs had hit an internal temperature of 160F and I took them off the grill.

I thought they turned out pretty nice!  Apologies for the blur on the last photo here…apparently the aroma of smoked meatballs distracted me from paying attention to focus points 🙂

A note on serving:  These were amazing hot off the smoker.  After an hour of sitting around they cooled off and the cheese had re solidified. The smoked meatballs were still good but nothing like the joy they inspired when they were fresh off the pit.

Peace.