BBQ USA Brought Back The Bacon Explosion, One Of The World's Most Viral Recipes

The internet is full of viral bacon recipes that grab the spotlight for either being incredibly good or just incredibly strange. But if you were watching the latest episode of Food Network's BBQ USA, you may still have been surprised by the return of one of the oldest viral recipes the internet ever gifted us: the Bacon Explosion.

For the season two premiere, Food Network star and chef Michael Symon stopped at the biggest and toughest barbecue competition of them all, the American Royal World Series of Barbecue at the Kansas Speedway. While he followed a handful of teams among the over 500 vying to take home a ribbon, it was an already well-known pair of pitmasters who made the biggest waves, as husband and wife team Megan and Jason Day unveiled a new version of the Bacon Explosion, the viral recipe they originally created over a decade ago.

The Day family's new iteration was created for the sausage category, which allows a lot more experimentation than some more traditional categories like ribs. Their team, Burnt Finger BBQ, took full advantage by smoking up a cheddar and jalapeño variation of their viral classic, which stuffs pork sausage with chopped bacon, wraps it in a bacon lattice, and then smokes it and slathers it in barbecue sauce.

The Bacon Explosion may have been the most recognizable name, but it was up against plenty of other creative meat inventions. Team LC BBQ got into a bacon-wrapped game of their own, with a similar cheese and poblano stuffed sausage, while Phoenix's Phil "The Grill" Johnson took a big swing with a pineapple jerk sausage. In the end, Burnt Finger's cheddar and jalapeño take on their most famous creation wasn't quite enough, and Good Smoke BBQ from Rochester, New York took home the top sausage prize.

The Day's, for their part, were well aware of the legacy they were bringing back with their hit recipe. There have been many viral recipes over the years, from Alison Roman's chocolate chunk cookie to Tiktok famous baked feta pasta, but few had the impact of the Bacon Explosion. It took over the internet back when social media was still in its infancy and viral recipes were not yet a thing. Despite that, the Bacon Explosion, which Jason Day says was only the second post on his blog, blew up, got write ups in national media like the New York Times and Today, and became the most downloaded recipe of all time up to that point. And while its moment in the spotlight may be long past, the shots of freshly cut rolled sausage oozing cheese looked good enough that it might be time for a comeback.