Smoked Shotgun Shells
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I’m always looking for new, creative barbecue snacks that I can throw on the smoker for game day parties and get-togethers, and when I saw these Smoked Shotgun Shells floating around social media, I knew I had to try them.
You stuff manicotti pasta with ground beef and cheese, wrap the entire thing in bacon (because everything is better with bacon), and smoke it. For the finishing touch, barbecue sauce is brushed over the top, and you are left with a simple but tasty barbecue snack!
One reader, Natalie, commented: “I used sweet Italian turkey sausage instead of ground beef, but they still turned out great! My family has made them numerous times for different people, and everyone loves them. Follow the directions, and they turn out great! ★★★★★“
Another , Tobin, commented: “Used ground round and Italian sausage. Added one minced jalapeño and some dried oregano. I refrigerated for 2days covered then wrapped the bacon and refrigerated another day. They came out perfect in every way. ★★★★★“
Smoked Shotgun Shells are having a moment
This is hands down our most popular recipe of all time.
It has over 8.5 million views on TikTok and more than 1 million visits on our website. People keep coming back for it, and once you try it, you’ll know why.
These are easy to make in advance and perfect for game day, cookouts, or feeding a hungry crowd.
You can put your own spin on these by mixing in jalapeños for a kick, swapping in spicy sausage, or glazing with hot honey.
If you’re looking for a BBQ snack that always gets a big reaction, this is the one to try.
Can you make these without a smoker?
Yes! While this is a recipe for “smoked” shotgun shells, there is no reason you can’t cook these in the oven and follow the time and temperature guidelines in the recipe below.
You’ll miss out on some smoky flavor, but since you are using barbecue sauce and rub, these will still have a lovely BBQ taste.
You could also cook these in an air fryer, although I haven’t done it myself, so you’ll have to experiment with cooking times.
The key to making sure the noodles are fully cooked
In other recipes, I’ve noticed complaints about the pasta still being hard at the end of the cook.
My technique for getting perfectly cooked pasta is to leave the stuffed shells in the fridge for 6-8 hours before smoking them. The moisture from the meat softens the pasta, which helps it cook while on the smoker.
If you are short on time, you can par-cook the shells for 1-2 minutes. Drain and allow to cool before stuffing.
How to Make Smoked Shotgun Shells
These are honestly pretty simple to make. The hardest part of the entire recipe is stuffing the ground beef into the manicotti pasta without breaking it.
I have noticed that some recipes opt to use either breakfast sausage or ground sausage, but I decided to use ground beef and season it myself so I could control the flavor profile.
1. The filling
All you need to do is to take a bowl and combine ground beef, Monterey jack cheese, and a little bit of your favorite barbecue rub.
For this recipe, I used the PS Seasoning Texas BBQ Rodeo Rub, which is a rub that is intended for brisket. Here are some other great recipes for rubs you can whip up right at home.
Feel free to experiment with different fillings, though! Here are a few ideas:
Recipe variation ideas
- Add diced jalapeño (fresh or pickled) to the meat mixture like we do in our Jalapeño Popper Shotgun Shells
- Use Italian sausage, breakfast sausage or chorizo instead of ground beef
- Use pepper jack or string cheese
- Use beef or turkey bacon to wrap
- Add fresh herbs to the meat mixture
2. Stuff and wrap
Once your beef and cheese mixture is well-incorporated, stuff it into dry, uncooked manicotti shells.
I found that putting little pieces in at a time was the easiest way to stuff them.
Once they are all stuffed, you’re just going to wrap each one in 2 slices of bacon. I used thick-cut bacon, but I honestly don’t think it will make much of a difference – so just use whatever bacon you have on hand.
When they’re all wrapped, sprinkle a little bit more of that barbecue rub over the top of each one.
3. Let them sit
I was concerned about the manicotti cooking all the way through on the smoker, so I decided to let them sit in the fridge for about 6 hours before smoking them.
This gives the moisture in the meat and bacon time to penetrate the pasta, so you won’t be left with crunchy pasta in the center of your shotgun shell.
If you are cooking for a crowd, you can prep these ahead of time and store them in the fridge for up to 3 days before cooking.
4. Fire Up the Smoker
When you’re ready to smoke your shotgun shells, just fire up your smoker to 250°F.
I smoked these on my Camp Chef Woodwind 24 smoker with Camp Chef Charwood pellets. They are a blend of charcoal and cherry wood.
Once your grill is preheated, lay the shotgun shells on a jerky tray or wire rack and place them on the grill. If you prefer to just put them directly on the grates, that is fine too.
You’re going to let them smoke for about 90 minutes, then kick up the temperature in your smoker to 350°F to crisp up that bacon. Let them cook at 350°F for another 10 minutes, then grab some barbecue sauce and a basting brush.
I used the PS Seasoning Bourbon Barrel whiskey BBQ sauce for this recipe. It’s a tangy sauce that is infused with barrel-aged bourbon and molasses. If you prefer to make your own barbecue sauce at home, here are BBQ Sauces You Can Make at Home.
Once they are well-coated in that sauce, you will place them back on the grill for another 10 minutes to let the sauce set and firm up. By this time your bacon should be perfectly crispy.
The final step is to stack them up on a nice butcher block, and these shotgun shells are ready to enjoy!
Looking for more great appetizers?
- Smoked Armadillo Eggs wrapped in bacon
- Smoked Pig Shots
- Bacon wrapped Jalapeno poppers
- Smoked Texas Twinkies
Enjoy your delicious smoked shotgun shells! Please give this recipe a star rating below and let us know how it turned out. If you made any tweaks, share them in the comments so others can try your ideas too!”
Smoked Shotgun Shells
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 cup Monterrey Jack cheese - shredded
- 2 tbsp barbecue rub - I recommend our brisket rub, or use your favorite store-bought rub.
- 10 Manicotti shells - uncooked
- 20 slices bacon
- ½ cup barbecue sauce
Instructions
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, cheese, and 1½ tablespoons of the barbecue rub. Mix with your hands until well-incorporated.
- Lay out your uncooked manicotti shells and stuff each one full of the ground beef mixture
- Once they are stuffed, wrap each manicotti shell in 2 slices of bacon and sprinkle the tops with the remaining barbecue rub.
- Store in the fridge for 6 hours.
- Preheat your smoker to 250°F.
- Transfer the shotgun shells to a jerky tray or wire rack and place them on the smoker.
- Let them smoke for 1½ hours, then increase the temperature on the smoker to 350°F.
- Let them cook for another 10 minutes, then brush each one with barbecue sauce, and let them cook for another 10 minutes.
- Serve immediately and enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated and should be used as an approximation only. If you’re worried you could always add a side of kale.
About Your Pitmaster
Breanna Stark is a Texas-based competitive pitmaster and barbecue educator. She grew up cooking over charcoal and open flames while camping with her father, sparking a lifelong love of barbecue. Since 2014, she has competed in over 100 IBCA, KCBS, and CBA events, earning recognition for her award-winning chicken and Texas-style barbecue.
Passionate about recipe testing and development to create approachable dishes that help backyard cooks level up their barbecue skills. Breanna shares her expertise with over three million followers on social media.
I don’t have a smoker, can these be done in an oven?
You could definitely do them in an oven.
If done in the oven would you still do it at the same temperatures or would it need to be changed?
Same times should be fine.
Same temperature in the oven
The first time I made these I mistakenly put the BBQ sauce in with the meat and then put some on top at the end also. The second time I only put it on top. We actually liked the BBQ sauce in with the meat better.
We call that a happy mistake, and it’s how some of the best recipes come about 🙂
Ease of recipe great. Taste very flat and boring. The meat is very bland. We are working to adapt the recipe for more flavor.
The taste of the meat will be impacted by the type of bbq rub you mix with the ground beef at the beginning. Make sure you use a rub with plenty of salt, or add additional salt to the mix.
Then maybe get a better rub????
Add two cloves of minced garlic and half of a yellow onion finely diced to the meat mixture along with 2 tsp of salt and pepper. Still tweaking the amount of rub, but this made a world of difference.
I think these were ‘as advertised’. My wife figured we could have them as dinner – I think she just didn’t want to make an accompaniment so she could play mobile games – they were a little too heavy for a main course.
I added fresh basil and thyme, which was nice, but they need garlic and onion, for sure.
Let them sit overnight in the fridge before cooking!!! After 4-6 hours the pasta was still hard.
Overall, pretty good. I would cut them into half inch rounds and put a tooth pick in them as an appetizer.
Mix the meat like you do for a hamburger or meatloaf.
Some people are saying the pasta is hard even after sitting in the fridge. I haven’t made them but I’m thinking par cook the pasta for a minute just to get them started and still be able to load them while they are still ridged??
There’s nothing wrong with par cooking the pasta, and it does save some time, but if you follow the times and instructions in the recipe you don’t need to.
I used hot Italian sausage and mixed in garlic, red pepper flakes, and a diced fresh jalapeno. Had no problems with flat and boring.
Yes I never follow any recipe to a T
WE ALL cook different i mixed jimmy dean sausage with some deer meat myself give that a shot
I use a mixture of chorizo and ground sage sausage and add chopped jalapenos.. it will really boost the flavor for you.
Speaking about shotgun shells here…
Manicotti was very hard. Seems it should be partially cooked before stuffing.
Did you leave in the fridge for the full 8 hours after stuffing the,? If you don’t do that step, you will need to cook the pasta a little before stuffing.
How long should they be cooked for?
All times are in the recipes.
But the recipe says 4-6 hours, not 8….So maybe overnight might work.
Agree ours set overnight 2 night still had a few spots with a little crunch
We used smoked chicken.
Hey Sandy, did you stuff with the smoked chicken? That would be the reason your pasta still had some crunch, as there wouldn’t be enough moisture. If you want to use chicken I would recommend slightly cooking the pasta first.
Left in refrigerator overnight and shells never cooked
I’m making this today, it says refrigerate 4-6 hours, but comments are saying 8 to overnight. Cook / uncook the shells… guess it might be trial and error for me. Haha
Delicious! I used a mix of ground turkey and Italian sausage and Montreal steak seasoning – basically salt, pepper, garlic and onion. I put them in the fridge overnight after stuffing and the manicotti came out just the right consistency. I would cut them in half if making them for appetizers, though that probably deends on the size of the noodles you buy. My wife ate the leftovers for 4 or 5 meals after that first night. Needless to say, they are a hit.
For those who say they taste bland, I did mine on the smoker and they definitely have a nice smoky flavor to them. If you did them in the oven, that would definitely subtract a lot from the taste.
Just came out kinda blah. Used Pepperjack cheese and Meat Church Holy Voodoo Rub (got some zing to it) and still got a comment from the wife “Tastes like meatloaf”. Gonna try again with some diced jalapeño. I did add a little water to the mix which I think helped the pasta and stuffing was really easy.
You could also try using breakfast sausage filling along with the jalapeño like in our other shotgun shell recipe.
Added milk in the mixture and in the fridge overnight…awesome!
This is one of the best things I’ve ever made. Easy, not complex at all, and I am not a cooker whatsoever.
I did half boil my noodles, not completely or they fall apart. So make sure you buy an extra box in case for spare noodles. But other than that I stuffed it, wrapped it, and let it sit in my fridge for a whole day, the juices absorbing and everything helps in my opinion. Then once I smoked them they came out perfect, not crunchy or dry. Lovedddd it!
Is the calorie count correct? 398k, meaning 3,980?
kcals is just another way of saying calorie.
So you cook the noodles or do you not cook them for the recipe. For the oven how do you cook them?
You don’t need to pre-cook the noodles. They cook on the smoker and end up perfectly soft!
I made these for the first time yesterday as an appetizer for a barbecued rib get together. After reading the recipe I made a couple of changes. I used some of my homemade sweet Italian sausage, finally shredded mozzarella cheese and 2 cups of water. I mix these ingredients up in a large bowl. The added water was for two reasons, one was for added lubricant to stuff the manicotti noodles the second reason was to add moisture to cook the manicotti pasta entirely. I then wrap them each with 2 ounces slices of thick cut bacon. As the directions called I placed them in a sealed container in the fridge for six or seven hours. I don’t smoked them with apple wood chips for 2 hours and 45 minutes. After 90 minutes of smoking as the directions called the bacon was still soft and not cooked thoroughly. So I continued smoking them until the bacon was cooked crisp but not crunchy. This ended up adding another hour and 15 minutes. I’ve been brushed them with a generous amount of three types of sauces. The first sauce was my wife’s favorite Sweet baby Ray’s sweet barbecue sauce made with honey. The second sauce was sweet baby Ray’s sweet and spicy barbecue sauce. The third sauce was oyster sauce a type of Asian barbecue sauce. Then I smoke them for an additional 15 minutes. During this time I made 2 dipping sauces, Yum Yum and Bang Bang sauce that you get at Japanese steakhouse.everyone had picked their favorite based on the bbq sauce that they like. There wasn’t anyone that didn’t finish them. There were 10 people at the bbq and I made the package of 14 manicotti shells. At the end of dinner there wasn’t any left. I actually went to get another one to try a different bbq sauce type but there wasn’t any left! Big hit., I’ll be sure to make these again soon.
Sorry for the typos, it should have said that I then smoked them with apple wood chips.
I not I’ve brushed them with.
Damn spell check
do you cook the beef first? probably a stupid question, but i must ask…
Nope, it’s all covered in the recipe.
Nope. I wondered too my first attempt.
I made the recipe for the first time and did it without the refrigeration step. They were great. I did cook the manicotti for 1 minute to soften the shells a wee bit but not too much. In other comments, people said their shells were still too crispy even after refrigeration and I wonder if that’s because they’re using too lean a meat. I used 80/20. Even though I softened the shells by cooking slightly, I feel the grease from the meat and bacon would’ve softened them up enough without pre-cooking them.
I can’t imagine them being bland. Some people said they didn’t have enough flavor and I think you just need to make sure you salt them enough and/or use a good rub. A different, more flavorful cheese can help. Monterey Jack can be a blander, milder cheese. A mixed cheese like shredded Italian mix or Mexican mix cheeses are good. We used an Italian mix.
We only used one piece of bacon for each and if you do that, it’s important to stretch it so it covers the whole shell otherwise the shell can get too crunchy on the ends from being in the oven.
Do you need to brown the meat before stuffing them?
I made these are they came out perfect. No hard crunchy shell. I made a dry rub and my own bbq sauce. I did a mixture of ground beef and chorizo. I let them marinate in fridge for 12 hrs then cooked in the oven.
I have some prepared to put on the grill tomorrow, I didn’t measure anything, I poured bunch of season on 2lbs hamburger, an added cream cheese. See how they turn out.
How did the cream cheese work with this recipe? I was thinking i bet that would taste great but I chickened out.
I used sweet italian turkey sausage instead of ground beef, but they still turned out great! My family has made them numerous times for different people and everyone loves them. Follow the directions and they turn out great! Or cook the shells slightly if you’re crunched on time. Either way they’re great for a crowd and hard to mess up!
I have already done these, they turned out very good. But now I want to try to hollow out halepeno peppers and stuff them with Italian sausage and cream cheese, then wrap in bacon has any one tried this?
Try and let us know what they taste like!
I have done that before! It’s kind of like a stuffed jalapeno popper and they are very good!
I have a couple adult children that don’t like cream cheese so i stuff my jalapeno’s with Italian sausage with a chunk of mozzarella then wrap in bacon. they are awesome. sometimes roll them in a small amount of brown sugar also.
Look up the recipe for Atomic Turds. That’s what you want. They are so good! You can use slices of peppers too if jalapeños are too spicy.
Haven’t tried these yet but they sound interesting. To stuff ant manicotti I suggest using a jerky gun.
So, rather than hard times, what internal temp are we looking at reaching before cranking it up to 350, and what internal temp after that? Thanks!
Hey Joe – when the ground beef filling reaches 165°F internal you can crank up the heat on the grill.
Used ground round and Italian sausage. Added one minced jalapeño and some dried oregano. I refrigerated for 2days covered then wrapped the bacon and refrigerated another day. They came out perfect in every way.
These are among the nastiest things I have ever eaten! They do not even look like they would remotely taste good with the charred/burnt appearance. These are literally not edible!
DEFINITELY NEED TO COOK MANICOTTI SHELLS first but even then, I would not recommend these at all!
Plus they take 3 hours to fix and the ingredients are a little pricey. Extremely disappointing!
Given our recipe has an average rating of 4.97/5 from 218 votes I’m going to guess you may have not followed the instructions correctly.
Most likely “operator error”. Been making something like this, different variations, for almost 50 years. Never had a problem or complaint. Common sense would say to add some fat and moisture to the meat mixture if using something that doesn’t have much at all. Takes 30 min to prep 2 doz shells, max. I have always done in the over or on the BBQ. Even in the campfire at cattle camp.
How long did you cook them for in the oven
Fantastic recipe thank you
If freezing would it be done before or after the cooking stage
LOVED THIS!
I tried this 2 ways and baked in oven.
1. Beef & pepper jack w sweet baby rays
2. Fresh chicken sausage & feta w Buffalo sauce
I stuffed the manicotti, wrapped one slice of bacon on each, coated the bottom of my pan with sauce, added more sauce on top, covered and baked at 275° for 2 hours. Took them out, lined my cookie sheet with foil (to make clean up easier) and put them on the cooling rack to put back in the oven at 350° for another 30 minutes.
They were PERFECT!! And SO GOOD!
Wish I could post a pic cause they looked awesome and were devoured 😋
My son recently asked for these, I was like huh?! I made them, tweaked the recipe a bit..
I definitely recommend par boiling; Otherwise it’s kind of like a stale cracker texture. I didn’t do this just as an experiment. Not for me…
For the meat I added in 1 Tbsp of yellow mustard, a splash of worsteshire, parsley, salt & pepper to taste. I was gonna throw in some sautéed onions, but I was out, didn’t feel like a store run..
They turned out yummy😋! Just didn’t care for the texture of the noodle.
I put some bbq sauce (sweet baby rays hickory) in with my rub when I make the mince mixture.
This helps with the moisture issue also, meaning more moisture.
Saves having a bland tasting mince mixture.
Didn’t use BBQ sauce, made a gravy out of the drippings I thought it was great something different. 😀
Left in the the fridge for 8hrs and followed the recipe spot on how it’s told. Shells were still hard. I’d recommend cooking the the shells until soft then following the recipe
I made these last night. I prepped exactly as instructed. Refrigerated them for 24 hours. I ended up baking them instead of smoked.
Outstanding! I can’t wait to smoke my next batch and wow everyone.
The key is the refrigerator and the seasoning. Don’t be afraid to use either of those.
Thanks Elena, and great to hear the recipe turned out well in the oven.
These sound delicious & plan on making them next week. I have an electric smoker & it only goes to 275°. Will this recipe still work but only take longer? How much longer should I let them go on that last step?
Hey Rhonda, I would probably do the first step which is to let them smoke for 1 ½ hours at 250°F, and then pop them in the oven for the final 20 minuites. That final step is just to make sure the bacon goes nice and crispy.
Love these things ! I make them often and have gone to using lasagna noodles instead of manicotti . It makes them a bit smaller but I cut the noodle in half and get 2 out of every piece of lasagna noodle. The bacon wrap holds them perfectly and then I put some pork rub on the shells before letting them sit in the fridge a while before cooking them. Just wanted to share this with you !
I’ve got to try using lasagna noddles, sounds like a good swap. Thanks for sharing!