Well well well well well. What have we here? To my hungry eyes, this looks like bacon-wrapped dates: soft, sweet Medjool dates stuffed with creamy, tangy goat cheese wrapped in salty, smoky bacon and baked to crispy-soft perfection.
Years ago I decided to start a dinner club. I invited a few friends over for dinner, and we all made or brought something delicious and then got overly personal in the best way by talking for hours through dinner and drinks and dessert, and then I invited everyone to do it all over again the next month. Repeat x forever because I love it that much. If you’ve ever thought about doing something like this, let me just say: now is your time. Invite, eat, connect, and be glad you did it. ♡
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Why Bacon Wrapped Dates Are So Good
One of my friends brought these bacon-wrapped dates as an appetizer during our very first DCM –> dinner club meeting –> because sometimes life is hard and I can’t be more creative than that with a dinner club name. Come on, you guys, just GIVE ME A BREAK.
We all bellied up to the peninsula in our old kitchen and she unwrapped the foil from the Bacon-Wrapped Date plate and BAM. They disappeared. So awesome, so alarming, and so right.
The soft, melty goat cheese inside the warm, plumped up date (how much do you like it when I say plumped up date? mixed feelings here) wrapped in the little bite-sized pieces of bacon was the absolute perfect three-way combo for our food-cray group of girls.
Obsessed doesn’t even touch it.
Just Three Ingredients
Now what I want you to do is this: go to the store and pick up these three ingredients:
- Bacon
- Goat cheese
- Dates
Make these bacon-wrapped dates and try them. I KNOW, RIGHT?! SO GOOD, RIGHT?! and now share them // try to share them // think about sharing them while sitting on the couch enjoying your bacon-wrapped date appetizer party.
It’s a Salty/Sweet Food Love Affair
Salty from the bacon, deliciously sweet from the dates, and creamy and tangy from the goat cheese.
The combo of all three: MIND-BLOWING.
Since learning to make these, they have been made approximately one bajillion and one times – for dinner club, for date night, for holiday parties, for sitting on the couch on a Friday night.
They’re so ridiculously easy while also being the most fancy-looking snack. Just what we like to see in the hustle and bustle of holidays and also LIFE.
Your salty-sweet, melty-cheese loving mouth is going to love them like whoa.
Kitchen Hack Ahead
Okay, pause. This is my sideways baking trick.
Basically what this is is me dealing with my annoyance about the bottoms of these little guys getting crispy-bacon while the sides stay chewy-bacon. It’s not evenly cooked and it’s not okay.
So my solution: stick a toothpick in each one and then use the toothpick to turn the Bacon Wrapped Dates every so often so that they get cooked on every side.
Crispy-bacon all around makes for a better party anyway.
Bacon-Wrapped Dates with Goat Cheese: FAQs
FIrst: check out the toothpick hack above. For crispier, browned bacon, set the oven temperature at 375. For crispier bacon, bake longer. Keep leftovers in the fridge.
Usually, my bacon pieces wrap around the dates 1.5 times. If it’s wrapping more than twice around the date, trim your bacon slices so they’re a little shorter. If that bacon layer is too thick, it won’t cook.
Take these to the next level by putting a little honey bourbon glaze on top. Just mix about 1/4 cup of honey with 1 tablespoon of bourbon and brush the mixture on the dates when they come right out of the oven.
Bacon-Wrapped Dates with Goat Cheese
Total Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 8 (2 dates per serving) 1x
Description
Bacon-Wrapped Dates with Goat Cheese – a simple 3-ingredient appetizer that will blow you away! Enjoy with a crowd of friends!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 8 slices bacon (I find that thin bacon works better)
- 16 dates
- 4 ounces goat cheese
- toothpicks
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice the dates lengthwise on one side to create an opening. Remove the pit.
- Using a spoon, stuff a small amount of goat cheese into the cavity of each date and press the sides together to close.
- Cut the bacon slices in half. Wrap each date with a slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick.
- Arrange evenly on a baking sheet with raised edges (otherwise grease will get everywhere) and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the dates and use the toothpick to turn each one so it’s laying on its side. Bake for another 5-8 minutes, until browned to your liking, and turn the dates to the other side and repeat. Remove from the oven, place on a paper towel lined plate, and let stand for 5 minutes before serving.
Equipment
Notes
Nutrition information is for two bacon-wrapped dates.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Appetizer
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: bacon-wrapped dates, goat cheese dates, bacon and goat cheese, date recipe
More Appetizers To Feed a Crowd
- Elote Queso (Creamy melty queso, charred roasted corn, fresh jalapeño and garlic. YUM.)
- Homemade Cheesy Chili Dip (Made-from-scratch super quick deliciously Tex-Mex flavored chili)
- General Tso’s Cauliflower (Golden brown crispy fried cauliflower tossed in a savory-sweet sauce)
- Caramelized Onion Dip (This caramelized onion dip is a total crowd pleaser)
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of best healthy snacks. Check it out!