Pellet Grill Smoked Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

Easy Traeger smoked bacon wrapped pork tenderloin is packed with flavor. Salty bacon… sweet bbq sauce… bbq rub… good God, it’s delicious! We make this popular pellet grill recipe for holidays and Sunday dinners. Let’s smoke pork tenderloin to perfection…

Smoking pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon definitely makes my list of easy smoker recipes. It’s great for beginners.

Why is this recipe for smoked bacon wrapped tenderloin so good?

• DELISH – Packed with huge smoke flavor and bacon flavor!
• Relatively short cooking time (just a couple hours).
• One tenderloin feeds 3-4 people.
• It’s an easy recipe to scale up for a larger dinner or holiday meal. 
• Makes a great use of tenderloin – an underappreciated cut of meat IMO.
• New to smoking foods? See my step by step video for beginners (scroll to bottom of page). 

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Ingredients

Here’s what you need to make bacon wrapped pork tenderloin in a smoker.

• 1.5 LB pork tenderloin
• Bacon 
• BBQ seasoning (any pork rub or bbq rub)
• BBQ sauce 

Shaving off silverskin before smoking tenderloin

If your pork tenderloin has a layer of silver skin on the meat (tough white tissue), you’ll want to use a knife to shave it off before seasoning the meat. 

Why? 

If you leave on silver skin, it won’t be fun to eat later (it gets chewy). And it can create an imbalance of flavor being able to penetrate the meat. And it can create pockets of uneven smoking temperatures. So shave it off!

How to smoke bacon wrapped pork tenderloin

Now I’ll walk you through it…

Quick look at recipe

1. Prep smoker, season tenderloin, and wrap it in bacon. 
2. Smoke tenderloin for 1.5 hours.
3. Brush on BBQ sauce and finish smoking ~30 minutes until pork reaches 145 degrees F. 
4. Rest and enjoy. 

Detailed recipe steps

1. Preheat Traeger smoker or whatever pellet grill you’re using to 225 degrees F.
2. Prepare bacon for tenderloin. Lay strips of bacon down on a cutting board or sheet pan so the edges touch, or just barely overlap. The amount of bacon needed to wrap tenderloin will depend on the size of the piece of pork. Then place the pork tenderloin on top of the bacon. 
3. Season. Sprinkle BBQ rub seasoning on pork tenderloin. (I like to sprinkle it on the pork, over the bacon, so extra seasoning falls onto the bacon. It’s just a little tasty OCD detail that I care about!) 
4. Wrap pork tenderloin with bacon. You’ll see in the video, we do a kind of criss-cross with the bacon when we wrap it around the pork on the top. It’s not easy to explain right here, but the edges of the bacon come down in a V-shape and cross over each other to secure tightly onto the pork. Do this one piece of bacon at a time, and make sure to cover the edges with bacon as well. The tenderloin should be hidden like a little mummy inside the bacon wrap. (Instead of just strips, you could make a “bacon weave” – see FAQs in this recipe – it’s like a bacon version of a pie lattice that looks cool.)
5. Smoke pork tenderloin in bacon. Place the bacon wrapped tenderloin directly on the Traeger Grill grates or Pit Boss or whatever you’re using (seam side where bacon ends meet DOWN) . Smoke with the lid closed for 1.5 hours.
6. Add BBQ Sauce and finish smoking. Brush BBQ sauce on top of bacon wrapped pork tenderloin (I do this while it’s still in the smoker but you can take it out if desired). Smoke tenderloin in bacon for about 30 minutes more, until it reaches an internal temperature of 145 degrees F (for medium). Exactly how long to smoke a pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon may vary depending on exact size, etc. so use an internal read thermometer to check if the tenderloin is safe to eat before turning off the smoker. (In this demo, the smoked wrapped tenderloin reached 145 degrees F in about 2 hours. The bacon wasn’t extremely crispy bacon – but it came out perfect for us – nice and meaty and dense in flavor.)
7. Rest and enjoy. Remove smoker cooked bacon wrapped tenderloin from the pellet grill and rest it on a cutting board for 15 minutes. Slice in 2-3 inch chunks (about the width of a slice of bacon). Serve with extra BBQ sauce if desired, and enjoy.

This bacon wrapped smoked pork tenderloin is delicious with this simple jalapeno ranch sauce.

Also see how to smoke a turkey…

FAQs

Favorite smoker recipes with bacon

These are great dishes with smoked bacon IN them, or ON them…

• Smoked mac and cheese with bacon topping
• Onion rings wrapped in bacon on the smoker
• Smoked bacon wrapped meatloaf
• Smoked bacon wrapped pork tenderloin
• Jalapeno poppers smoked wrapped with bacon
• Smoked mashed potatoes
• Smoked baked potatoes
• Smoked burger
• “Juicy Lucy” smoked bacon wrapped burgers
• Smoked bacon
• Traeger smoked pork belly burnt ends

Start your day with a BBQ breakfast featuring this smoked breakfast fatty…

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Pro tip: One of my go-to tricks for perfectly cooked food every time is using the right BBQ meat thermometers.

Are you a foodie, too?

Hey home chefs, hope that answers all your questions about making smoked pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon. It’s really a treat.  

If you’re into sous vide cooking, check out my recipes for sous vide pork tenderloin and sous vide pork loin.

Don’t miss this recipe for smoked peaches…

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