These Bacon-Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers are one of my favorite OG Our Best Bites recipes. I was planning on posting an amaaaazing new dinner recipe today and share this (made-over) post on Thursday, but then our site went down last week and there are still things that aren’t quite working right PLUS basically my whole family got influenza PLUS the same family is all in a musical this week. So. This is happening today and then I’m going to hide for about 5 minutes.
This is one of my favorite fun foods, especially because you can serve it as an appetizer or as a meal. It’s a twist on Teriyaki chicken and you’re going to be pretty hard-pressed to find people, especially men, unimpressed by meat wrapped in meat and then grilled. And speaking of grilled, these can be done in your oven, but for the truly transcendental experience, they’re best on the grill. Yeah, I know, it’s March and not quite grill season yet, but I kind of believe that it’s always grill season, even when there’s snow on the ground.
You’re going to need boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs, bacon, and some of our amazing homemade Teriyaki sauce.
Reserve 1/4 cup of Teriyaki sauce and refrigerate until ready to use.
Remove the bacon from the package and while it’s still all stuck together, stretch it out a little (lengthwise). If you’re using center-cut bacon (and the “slab” is not as wide as regular bacon), just cut it in half. Otherwise, use kitchen shears to cut the slab into thirds. Place in a large pie plate or 9×13″ baking dish.
Using kitchen shears, cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. You can gauge about how many pieces you’ll need by how many pieces of bacon you have–count the slices of bacon and multiply by 2 or 3 (depending on how many pieces you cut the bacon into) and then aim to cut about that many pieces of chicken. Add the chicken to the bacon, then add pineapple and cover in Teriyaki sauce. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
When ready to cook, wrap each piece of chicken in a piece of bacon and skewer. Top with a chunk of pineapple. For appetizers, you can make these on toothpicks; for skewers, alternate bacon-wrapped meat with pineapple (3-4 per skewer).
Preheat grill to 375-400. When hot, place skewers on grill and baste with reserved Teriyaki sauce. Cook about 7 minutes and flip skewers. Baste again and cook another 7 minutes. If grilling appetizers, use a grill pan if necessary to prevent them from falling through the grates.
To make these in the oven, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Preheat oven to 400. Place skewers on baking sheet and and bake about 20 minutes, turning once, following the same basting instructions.
Wondering what to serve on the side? Try Pineapple Cilantro Rice, Caramelized Green Beans, and Brazilian Lemonade for an amazing meal with tropical flair!
Bacon-Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers
These Bacon-Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers are a surefire hit during grilling season, but they can be made year-round in the oven!
Ingredients
- 1-1 1/2 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts or chicken thighs thighs trimmed of fat
- 1 12- ounce package bacon not thick-sliced; it's too hard to wrap the chicken
- 1 16- ounce can pineapple chunks
- Homemade Teriyaki sauce
Instructions
- Reserve 1/4 cup of Teriyaki sauce and refrigerate until ready to use.
- Remove the bacon from the package and while it's still all stuck together, stretch it out a little (lengthwise). If you're using center-cut bacon (and the "slab" is not as wide as regular bacon), just cut it in half. Otherwise, use kitchen shears to cut the slab into thirds. Place in a large pie plate or 9x13" baking dish.
- Using kitchen shears, cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. You can gauge about how many pieces you'll need by how many pieces of bacon you have--count the slices of bacon and multiply by 2 or 3 (depending on how many pieces you cut the bacon into) and then aim to cut about that many pieces of chicken. Add the chicken to the bacon, then add pineapple and cover in Teriyaki sauce. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
- When ready to cook, wrap each piece of chicken in a piece of bacon and skewer. Top with a chunk of pineapple. For appetizers, you can make these on toothpicks; for skewers, alternate bacon-wrapped meat with pineapple (3-4 per skewer).
- Preheat grill to 375-400. When hot, place skewers on grill and baste with reserved Teriyaki sauce. Cook about 7 minutes and flip skewers. Baste again and cook another 7 minutes. If grilling appetizers, use a grill pan if necessary to prevent them from falling through the grates.
- To make these in the oven, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Preheat oven to 400. Place skewers on baking sheet and and bake about 20 minutes, turning once, following the same basting instructions.
Notes
Wondering what to serve on the side? Try Pineapple Cilantro Rice, Caramelized Green Beans, and Brazilian Lemonade for an amazing meal with tropical flair!
Did You Make This Recipe?Snap a picture, and hashtag it #ourbestbites. We love to see your creations on our Instagram @ourbestbites!
Questions & Reviews
Can I make this without a grill in the oven?
I’ve done bite-sized appetizers in the oven before on 425, so I imagine you can do them as skewers, too! Just use a broiler pan so the excess liquid has somewhere to go and doesn’t make them mushy.
This is easily one of my favorite recipes on the planet. The only thing I do differently is that I prefer to cook them over indirect heat on my charcoal smoker. It takes longer – at least 45 minutes to an hour – but the chicken gets infused with the bacon fat and it is soooo tender. The teriyaki sauce recipe that accompanies this is also excellent.
Made this tonight and it was so good that I had to comment. No problems with mushy chicken here! I u did leave a bit of space between each bacon-wrapped chicken chunk and piece of pineapple (maybe 1/4. in) and only had time to marinate for 4 hours. Really delicious! The teriyaki sauce was perfect. I topped it with toasted sesame seeds and served with brown rice and sautéed sugar snap peas.
I recommend using fresh pineapple. Yum!
Like a party in my mouth! This was insanely delicious. I’ve been a OBB fan for a long time and actually make a lot of your recipes as freezer meals… This one included. But I couldn’t wait for this recipe so it didn’t make it into the freezer… We had it right away. Just one (pretty major) issue. Mushy chicken 🙁 boooo! I looked it up and sure enough apparently it’s a fairly widely known fact that the acidity of pineapple will destroy your chicken and make it mushy! Anyway… I will still make this recipe over and over… I could practically drink that amazing teriyaki sauce…but will skewer the chicken and pineapple separately.
How do you keep these warm in the crock pot for a pot luck?
Sorry, I forget to mention that I made this into freezer cooking packets. Cut up the meat into individual baggies, the bacon in another baggie. Write a note on the pineapple cans and the teryaki sauce that they are needed for this recipe. Voila! Thanks for this great recipe (and many others!).
I love these! However, next time I am going to use a BBQ grill pan. Just dump in the ingredients and stir over the grill. KISS is my motto.
I just want to personally thank you for all these wonderful recipes. My grand-daughter is having a party at the beach and I was completely lost on menu wise. So I found your sight and to my amazement I was able to come up with the whole menu for that birthday party..and few other other dishes for future occasions.
Thank you…
Norma
I made the Bacon wrapped Teriyaki chicken skewers because my daughter made them and she said they were delicious. I also made the Caramelized Green Beans along with the Lime-Cilantro rice with Pinapple, which were the suggestions to serve along with the skewers. This was my first time to make them and serve them to guests, it was all a hit and very flavorful. Definitely I would make again and want to try more recipes from Best Bites.
theres dinner for tonight. I already have the chicken marinating in teriyaki sauce
Made these for the 4th of July, my first experience grilling kebabs and they were absolutely delectable! Thank you!
I made these tonight on my George Foreman grill, just set it for 5 minutes and viola! I had no cilantro 🙁 so I made ginger pineapple rice yummmm!!!
Like another reader, my pineapple turned brown. Any way to prvent that?
Also, do you need to soak the skewers before marinating the meat?
I tried them and they taste amazing!! Thanks so much.
Sarah
If you’re using wood/bamboo skewers, definitely soak them. I’m not sure what’s going on with your pineapple, but it’s okay if it browns while cooking, that’s normal!
How many skewers does this recipe make? I’m serving this for my son’s granduation party. There will be about 50 people there. Is this recipe enough for 50 people?
Thanks,
Bridget
It really depends on how big you make the skewers and how much other food you have available. But I really don’t think this would be enough for 50 people, even if you made them as appetizers. If you’re serving this as a main dish, I’d multiply it by 8-9.
I cannot tell you how excited I am that we have a propane grill now! I’m going to make EVERY grilling recipe you have on this site;)
Any chance this can be FROZEN ahead of time?
Sure! 🙂
Making these right now and have made them once before! They’re soo amazing! 🙂
These were SERIOUSLY delicious. Thank you!
another great recipe! just made these for dinner. my 3 yr old couldnt get enough. (i can NEVER get her to eat meat.) thank you.
This was an excellent recipe! They were a big hit . . . I’ll definitely make them again! THANK YOU!
I was having one of those, “Opps, it’s Sunday and I just invited a family over for dinner and I have nothing to make” moments. So I headed to this blog, (I always am inspired by it) saw this recipe, made my kabobs and marinated them during church. I didn’t have bacon, but had ham lunch meat instead and used half a slice per piece of chicken. It turned out so yummy! I baked them instead of grilling because the ham was a little delicate and I knew it would just fall off on the grill. I also made your cilantro/pineapple rice. Success in a pinch! Love it! Thanks ladies!
First time I made them following the directions and the flavor was great but my bacon wasn’t crispy so we tried it again a different way with much better results. I skewered the chicken and pineapple on separate skewers and put the pineapple ones on the grill after the chicken ones had cooked a while. Then I cut the bacon into 1″ pieces and cooked in a skillet. Drained the bacon then combined everything back together in the skillet when they were all cooked. Not as fun presentation-wise since they weren’t served on the skewers but it was so tasty!
Just wanted to let you know that I bought your cookbook a couple of weeks ago and have been trying several recipes each week (none have disappointed!) We had these the other night and they were another hit!! The fam went crazy over these. THANKS for sharing your talents and helping me improve my cooking skills! =)