Texas Twinkies: Jalapeño Stuffed With Leftover Brisket

If you’ve never heard of Texas Twinkies before, you’ll wish you had discovered them earlier.

Made from a mythical thing called leftover brisket (I know, what the hell is leftover brisket?), but if you get addicted to these things like I did, you’ll want to smoke a whole brisket just to make them!

Which I did. Well, kind of.

What the heck is a Texas Twinkie?

A Texas Twinkie is a jalapeño popper on crack. It’s a jalapeño popper that has decided it wants to do MMA for a living. It’s a jalapeno popper that has ascended to the heavens and returned with an answer to all life’s questions…

In short, a Texas Twinkie is a combination of all that is great about BBQ. Smokey, spicy, smooth, sweet, cheesy… and BACON. What isn’t to like??

If you really don’t like spice you can always use sweet peppers like in our smoked stuffed pepper recipe.

I had the idea in my head of doing Texas Twinkies again recently, and because I love them so much, I literally had to come up with an excuse to smoke a brisket first for leftovers.

Unfortunately for me, that event was a Xmas street party and I had to cater for 60 people. Did I have leftover brisket for TT? Hell No!!

So I had to come up with ANOTHER excuse to smoke a brisket – I know, horrible!! So after my family and neighbors were full of brisket (again), I finally managed to put some away into the fridge ready for my Texas Twinkies the next day…

What you’ll need

• Leftover smoked brisket
• A smoker capable of indirect heat
• Smoking wood like hickory
• Nitrile gloves
• Toothpicks

Preparing the Texas Twinkies

I do my Twinkies in two different ways, and I’ll show you how to do both, but they start the same way.

Take your whole jalapeños, and split them lengthways.

You are going to want to get rid of the seeds, not necessarily because of heat, but texture, so now is the time to don your glove.

With gloves on, take your thumb, and run it underneath all the seeds, and they should pop right out. 

Hot tip! – pun intended – DON’T NOW GO TO THE TOILET LIKE I DID. Or if you do, remove the glove and wash your hands. You’ll regret it a lot if you don’t. Believe me.

Once you’ve removed all the seeds, place aside for filling.

Making your filling

Like I said, I do my filling in two ways:

Take your leftover brisket and slice against the grain in slices just big enough to fit inside a jalapeño. With the rest, chop it finely to mix into the cream cheese to stuff the jalapeño.

Now it’s time to fry some finely chopped bacon. Once the bacon is nicely crispy, drain and set aside to mix in. 

Once your leftover brisket is chopped and bacon is crispy, it’s time to make the filling. Into a large bowl, place your cream cheese, grated cheddar and mozzarella, bacon, and chopped brisket.

You can also add a little of your favorite BBQ rub at this point if you wish.

Filling your jalapeños

Once you’ve removed the seeds and made your filling, it’s time to fill your jalapeños…

Depending on how you’d like to make your Twinkies, you can either fill each half with your cream cheese mix, and wrap with a slice of streaky bacon, OR you can do the same as above, but lay a slice of brisket between two halves of jalapeño and sandwich it between the halves before wrapping in streaky bacon.

I like to have some toothpicks on hand to hold the bacon in place around the jalapeños.

Smoking your Twinkies

Once you’ve assembled your Twinkies, pop them in the fridge while you light your smoker/BBQ. I like to use hickory chunks for the smoke on these. Set your BBQ for 350-375°F indirect heat.

When your smoker is at temp, put your Twinkies on the grill over indirect heat for around 45 minutes, then brush with your favorite BBQ sauce (I used Lanes Pineapple Chipotle which goes together like peas and carrots to quote Mr. Gump) for another 15 minutes to set the glaze.

Take them off the grill and use them to bribe local politicians into doing whatever it is that you need doing… That’s how good these are!

It really is that easy!!

I serve these as they are with a blue cheese dip for extra cheesiness, and with fries or wedges as a great extra to a backyard BBQ…

Your friends will be back, I promise!

Serve with a crisp, clean lager.

Cheers, mate.

Other spicy jalapeño recipes to try

• Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers
• Jalapeño Popper Dip Recipe
• Grilled Brisket Breakfast Burrito with Jalapeño Cheese Blanket
• Smoked Armadillo Eggs