Egg and Sausage Breakfast Fatty
Smoked on My Meadow Creek SQ36 Smoker

At our house, breakfast foods are welcome any time of day, especially those cooked over a wood fire and bursting with the flavors that only bacon and sausage can bring to the table.

If you’ve been around barbecue for a while, you’ve most likely heard of or even eaten some variation of a fatty. Of course, there are hundreds of different ways to make these, but I was inspired to try one with eggs as part of the stuffing.

Ingredients

The Bacon Weave

For the weave, I used 14 pieces of thick-cut John F. Martin bacon, 7 horizontal and 7 vertical. Lay out 7 vertical slices side by side, then weave a horizontal slice along the one edge. Next fold up the vertical slices that are under the horizontal piece and add the second horizontal slice. Lay them down again and do the same for the next slice, this time lifting the other set of vertical slices. Once you’re done, you should have a square blanket of bacon.

Depending on the size of the bacon slices, a 6x6 square might work better.

The Eggs

Sauté the onion and pepper in a skillet and add the eggs. Scramble and fry the eggs.

The Assembly

Evenly spread the sausage over the bacon within an inch of the edge. 2 pounds may be too much sausage for your preference, so if you prefer not having the fatty as full, cut it back to 1 or 1-1/2 pounds of sausage. Feel free to add more egg or whatever else you want.

You can use less filling and overlap the edges of the bacon more, but I prefer this method, which keeps more of the bacon surface exposed to the heat. It can be challenging to get the weave pretty, but take your time, and remember that the flavors will offset any flaws in the weave!

Wrap the plastic wrap tightly around the fatty and set it in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it. This helps it firm up to keep the seam intact when you’re cooking it.

Once the internal temperature of the meat reaches 165 degrees F it’s done. It should be done in less than 90 minutes, but it will depend on how hot your smoker is running.

If you are cooking on a charcoal smoker, it’s important to keep an eye on the fuel. It took mine two hours because I was busy in the office and let the fire die down. I use a propane torch to fire my smoker, which makes it easier to correct a mistake like this, but it can still be frustrating when you’re trying to cook on a schedule. I turned the fatty upside down and moved it toward the firebox to finish it more quickly.

A thick slice of the fatty on a toasted homemade bagel with homemade grape juice made this a simple, yet delicious meal. I topped it off with a sourdough cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee for dessert.