Bacon Wrapped Dates Appetizer Recipe

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Today I'm sharing one of my very favorite easy appetizer recipes, for bacon wrapped dates.  They're a staple of Spanish tapas (and oh, how I love tapas), and so easy to make at home.

Small white bowl holding three bacon wrapped dates, sitting on a dark wood background.  Text overlay reads "Bacon Wrapped Dates."

Can it even be called a recipe if there are only two ingredients?  I suppose it is cooked, but it's so easy, it feels like cheating to call it a recipe.

Bacon and a container of whole dates, ingredients for bacon wrapped dates appetizers, sitting on a dark wood surface.

You can make them even fancier and more indulgent by making goat cheese stuffed dates that are similarly wrapped with bacon, and filled with a mixture of goat cheese, honey, and almonds.  Those are truly amazing, but I love these simple, sweet-and-salty bacon wrapped dates just as much!

Ingredients for Bacon Wrapped Dates Tapas Recipe:

  • bacon
  • dates

(Kind of obvious, no?)

Uncooked dates wrapped in raw bacon, skewered with a toothpick, and sitting elevated on a wire cooling rack sitting inside a baking tray.

Pit the dates (if they came with pits).

Cut each strip of bacon in half, and wrap one half-strip of bacon around each date.  You might find it helpful to secure the bacon with a toothpick if the bacon you're using is particularly thick.

Place an oven-safe cooling grate in a half-sheet pan (or a different size, but be sure the pan has a lip to catch the bacon drippings)  I don't have a cooling rack that's the perfect size, but I do have two smaller ones, and I just use both of those, overlapping the grates by a few inches.  Baking on the grates isn't strictly necessary, but it does allow the excess fat to drip down as the bacon is cooking.

Freshly cooked bacon wrapped dates appetizers sitting elevated on a wire cooling rack in a baking tray, so the bacon fat can drip down as it cooks.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes--but use the time as a general guideline.  Your actual baking time will depend largely on how thick your bacon is, and how you like your bacon cooked.

These are amazing served hot, but still taste fabulous at room temperature.  Your guests will love this classic salty and sweet appetizer.

Other Bacon Recipes You Might Like:

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Nicole Wills, creator of Tikkido

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