These Bacon Wrapped Pineapple Chicken Shots are the perfect party food. These bad boys can easily attend any function from a holiday party to a backyard BBQ and everywhere in between. They are especially popular around these parts for Sunday football. These tasty little appetizer shots are a real crowd pleaser.
You had me at bacon. The bacon here is what forms the shot around a base of chicken. Use your favorite bacon. I used regular cut bacon, not the thick cut, to form the base. This way it gets nice and cooked. You can secure each one with a toothpick to hold them together but I’ve found that it’s really not necessary if you use a mini muffin tin. It is important, however, that the edges of the bacon overlap to form a cup around the chicken base.
Next, pipe the pineapple-cream cheese filling inside each cup. Warning: if the bacon is not fully overlapping, the cheese filling will leak out. If using a sheet pan [paid link], definitely secure with toothpicks. In the mini muffin cups, like I used, the bacon easily held its shape – and the filling. Clean up of the mini muffin pan looked daunting at first but after a quick soak shines like new again.
Then I top each cup with an additional pineapple chunk and pop them in the oven…
… and bake to absolute perfection.
These Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple Chicken Shots are scrumptious. The saltiness of the bacon combined with the sweetness of the pineapple and the smokiness from the BBQ coated chicken creates such a flavorful little bite. All 24 of these appetizers were gone in minutes and they have already been requested again next week.
Need some other quick appetizers? Check these out:
Air Fryer Ravioli
Nashville Hot Chicken Tenders
Baked Parmesan Cheese Fries
Barbecue Dry-Rubbed Chicken Wings
Spinach Dip Stuffed French Bread
Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple Chicken Shots
Ingredients
For the Base (“Shot Glass”):
- 1 large (about 6 to 8 ounces) chicken breast or two smaller chicken breasts cut into 24 1-inch pieces
- 12 slices bacon , your favorite brand and flavor, cut in half width-wise [See Note 1]
- 1 tablespoon Sweet BBQ Rub , more or less to taste
For the Filling:
- 4 oz package (half package) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup pineapple chunks , chopped
- 2 tablespoons pineapple juice [See Note 3]
- 1/4 teaspoon salt [See Note 4]
- 1 teaspoon Sweet BBQ Rub
For the Garnish:
- 24 pineapple chunks [See Note 2]
- additional Sweet BBQ Rub just to lightly dust the tops
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
- Prepare 24 mini muffins tins with a small amount of non stick cooking spray or line a large jelly roll pan [paid link] with aluminum foil. [See Note 5]
- Slice the chicken into 1-inch pieces and coat with a Sweet BBQ Rub blend. Wrap each piece of chicken with a half slice of bacon overlapping the ends so it forms a circle around the chicken meat. If desired, secure through the bacon and the chicken with a toothpick. This is the base of your “shot glass.”
- In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese, pineapple juice, and 1/2 cup of pineapple chunks, reserving the rest of the pineapple to top the shots in Step 6, salt and BBQ rub. Note: The pineapple will break more up as it blends with the cream cheese.
- Transfer the cream cheese mixture to a quart sized zip-top bag and snip off one of the bottom corners. Pipe some of the mixture into each of the appetizers leaving just a little room at the top.
- Place one pineapple chunk into the top of each shot and lightly dust them with a little more BBQ rub.
- Transfer the shots to the prepared mini muffin pans or a foil lined jelly roll pan [paid link] and cook for 30 minutes, or until the bacon gets crisp and brown. Serve warm.
Notes
- Regular cut bacon works better in this recipe than thick cut because it cooks faster and firms up to for the shot glass.
- You can opt to use a fresh pineapple, but a can of pineapple chunks works just as well.
- You can use juice reserved from the can of pineapple.
- For the filling, adjust the salt according to your tastes noting that the bacon also has a salty element.
- Mini muffin tins can get messy and require a fair amount of cleaning afterward. Alternatively, you can use a foil-lined jelly roll pan [paid link] (baking tray) for easy cleanup.
Perfect for our backyard BBQ. The guests loved them and they were pretty easy to make.
I can see why your family tire these up. So addictive.