This is one of those summer hits that people will be wanting your recipe for. A few years ago, I saw a recipe on one of those recipe chain Facebook posts for stuffed chicken breasts that used these same stuffing ingredients, and thus, eventually the pork chop grenade was born. At first, I made this recipe using chicken thighs, but it has expanded to the “other white meat”, and I’ve gotta say it’s pork perfection! But feel free to sub chicken or even pork tenderloin in place of a pork chop here – it really is versatile!

Ingredients:
Pork chops or pork steaks with bones removed
BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays here)
1-2 strips of bacon per grenade
1/2 jalapeño sliced per grenade
Your favorite grilling seasoning or just plain salt and pepper
About 1 T cream cheese per grenade

1. This recipe graduated from chicken to pork because these bone-in pork steaks were on sale for a steal at the store. See what being a savvy shopper can do for you? 🙂 I just cut out the bones of the steaks before using them. Obviously, the easiest thing would be to buy thin cut boneless pork chops.

2. Sprinkle your favorite grilling seasoning on your meat and put about a tablespoon of cream cheese on each chop.

3. Using either the back of a spoon or your fingers, mush the cream cheese out a little bit and place 1/2 a jalapeño on each. I like to keep a few seeds and stems in mine to keep them spicy! Please excuse the blurry pic 🙂

4. Now here is the messy part! You’re going to wrap these up into grenades using 1-2 slices of bacon each. Try to seal them up with the bacon because it helps keep the stuffing inside. I like to do a little fresh cracked black pepper on top of the bacon because it’s delicious and it looks pretty.

5. Now you can decide to either bake or grill these. Normally, I grill mine but now that I’m living in Amarillo AKA the US’s windiest city , I don’t particularly enjoy grilling in gale force winds, so I bake them. I use a grilling sheet I’ve sprayed with non-stick spray on top of a cookie sheet/jelly roll pan lined with foil for easy cleanup. Bake at 375 for anywhere from 45-60 minutes based on the thickness of your meat. Then take them out and turn the heat up to 400 or crank the grill up.

6. Now you’re going to baste them with your favorite BBQ sauce and put back in for 10-15 minutes. Again, you don’t want to overcook them, so keep in mind the thickness of your meat before you cook it.

7. Your grenades are ready to eat! Let’s cut into one of these babies and check out that creamy spicy perfection!