If you love jalapeño poppers but want something bigger, meatier, and smokier, meet Texas Twinkies, the bacon-wrapped, brisket-stuffed version of your favorite appetizer. These smoky, spicy bites take classic jalapeño poppers to legendary territory with creamy cheese, chopped smoked brisket, and perfectly rendered bacon.

What are Texas Twinkies?

Texas Twinkies are the glorified, Don't-Mess-With-Texas cousin of Jalapeño poppers. Texas Twinkies are essentially smoked jalapeño poppers on steroids. Whole jalapeños are hollowed, filled with cream cheese and smoked brisket, then wrapped in bacon and slowly smoked for rich, deep flavor. The result? A smoky, spicy, savory bite that’s everything you want at a party or game day spread.

What makes Texas Twinkies good?

Classic jalapeño poppers are delicious, but Texas Twinkies bump up every element:

• Smoked Brisket Filling: Adds smoky beefiness and texture
• Cream Cheese Comfort: Balances heat with creamy richness
• Bacon Wrap: Crisps perfectly while locking in flavor
• Perfect for appetizers, potlucks, tailgates, or backyard BBQs
  These are jalapeño poppers with real BBQ cred big enough to satisfy, and bold enough to steal the show.

The first requirement, good brisket, is for the best Texas Twinkies. But if you're just learning to smoke brisket and haven't yet perfected it, this is a great place to hide some less-than-stellar meat. Of course, we hope you'll follow our temperature guides for great brisket and end up with perfect meat, just with so much of it that you have leftovers. But if the pit does wrong by you, keep that meat, chop it up, and use it here.

The second requirement, tender enough to bite easily, also leads us to a solution for the difficulty of stuffing the jalapeños. Matt Pittman of Meat Church BBQ recommends slitting the peppers open in a T-shape, then smoking them at 250°F (121°C) for 30 minutes before stuffing them. We recommend going one step further and turning the peppers halfway through cooking. This softens (and flavors) the peppers to make them easier to stuff without breaking them, and gives the final product a "cooked" texture and flavor, which is more luxurious than a raw-pepper crunch in this case.

The third requirement for properly rendered bacon has two solutions. First, use regular-cut bacon, not thick-cut bacon. Thick-cut is great for breakfast and even for sandwiches and burgers, but it's not great for wrapping things. Second, cook it right!

Temperature Tips for Perfect Results

To cook these treats right, you need to keep your smoker nice and low and let them go for longer than you'd expect. 250°F (121°C) is perfect, and it takes a good 90 minutes to get to where we're going. Using your Smoke X2 and Billows BBQ Control Fan to maintain the temperature over the duration of the cook will allow you to go about your party-preparation business while these morsels slowly cook to perfection.

There isn't a doneness temperature per se, but we're looking for the bacon to be well rendered and the rub we apply to the outside (yes, after wrapping in bacon, we apply BBQ rub!) to be set and barky.

Conclusion

These are mean tasty. If you have leftover brisket, this is a fantastic way to use it with minimal effort. Their only downside is that they take a while to cook. But with Billows and Smoke X on your side, that doesn't even matter, because you don't have to pay almost any attention to what's happening. So go wild. Make a whole smoker of these treats this weekend and enjoy a different taste of Texas BBQ. Happy cooking!