Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts & Sweet Chili Sauce

Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts with Sweet Chili Sauce are an easy to make delicious appetizer to serve at game-day parties and during the holidays. The Asian sweet chili glaze goes on the appetizer near the end of baking time and placed back in the oven to finish cooking. This leaves a spicy sweet glaze that is irresistibly delicious!

This appetizer recipe is one that your guests will talk about for days. And, they will request you bring it to every party! No matter what you do, be sure to make plenty of them because these tend to disappear quickly!

Sweet Chili Sauce for your wrapped water chestnut recipe

When I decided I wanted to make water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, I knew I wanted a different type of glaze. You will usually see a glaze for bacon wrapped water chestnuts made with brown sugar and ketchup. While I don't hate ketchup, I didn't like the sound of it coating my appetizer. And, I wanted something a little different that would appeal to my love of a sweet heat combination.

I have been into the asian sweet chili sauce lately, so I decided to try making a glaze/dipping sauce with it. I tried mixing it with a little mayonnaise and while it was tasty, it was too sweet for me. A touch of sriracha sauce did the trick of cutting the sweetness! The sweet chili sauce glaze combined with the salty smoky bacon and a crunchy water chestnut was a winner!

Bacon Wrapped Appetizers for the Win!

Everyone loves bacon, right? I know I love anything that a piece of bacon is involved in! Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts recipes have been around for a long time. There are many different variations of glazes and they are sweet, salty, crispy, and delicious!

Grumpy's very favorite bacon wrapped appetizer recipe is this Bacon Wrapped Scallops with Maple Bourbon Glaze. We also love Bacon Wrapped Potato Wedges with Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce, and Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Jalapenos!

Rumaki: The original recipe

I never knew that bacon wrapped water chestnuts were actually called Rumaki until I went to a Christmas Party hosted by a former supervisor of mine. She was serving something called Rumaki and after my first bite I knew I was going to find out how to make it! I couldn't get enough of that appetizer, it was so delicious I wanted to eat the whole tray by myself!

Rumaki actually is a bacon wrapped chicken or duck liver with a water chestnut. It is marinated in a soy sauce with ginger and brown sugar. I have also seen some people use a brown sugar worcestershire sauce glaze.

What you need to make Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts with Sweet Chili Glaze

This recipe is super easy. It uses only 5 ingredients. The glaze consists of mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce and sriracha. The other two ingredients are water chestnuts and regular cut bacon.

For equipment you will need either a baking pan with a rack or baking dish lined with foil (for easy clean up). You also need toothpicks to secure your piece of bacon onto the water chestnut.

Tips for making easy and delicious Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts

There are some simple steps you can take that will make this appetizer recipe easy peasy to assemble.

• Cut the bacon into thirds. I found that is the perfect size piece of bacon to wrap around the water chestnut.
• Portion out the exact number of toothpicks you plan to use. That way you don't have to worry about contaminating toothpicks in the box.
• Stretch the piece of bacon around the water chestnut enough so it wraps around it entirely and a little bit over top of the starting point.
• Be sure to pierce through a fatty or meaty part of the bacon to secure it.

Let's make some Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts!

Grab all of your ingredients and make the sauce first.

Stir together the mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce, and sriracha in a small bowl and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Open the cans of water chestnuts and count out your toothpicks. You will know how many toothpicks by counting how many water chestnuts are in the can.

Cut your pieces of bacon into 3 pieces. Some people will cut the bacon in half, but I find that is too much bacon for the water chestnut. You only need enough bacon to wrap around the water chestnut one time with just a little overlap.

Once the water chestnut is covered with the bacon, pierce it with a toothpick in a fatty or meaty section of the bacon. Avoid the area where the fat pulls away from the meat. You want the toothpick to hold the bacon securely around the water chestnut.

Place the bacon wrapped water chestnuts on a rack over a baking sheet that has been lined with foil. This will catch the grease and make clean up easier. As you can see in my photo below, I forgot the foil and what a mess I had to clean up!

Bake in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes. Your bacon should look like it is completely cooked. Remove the bacon wrapped water chestnuts from the oven. Dip them in the sweet chili sauce then place back on the rack and back into the oven. Bake another 10-15 minutes or until the glaze look like it has baked onto the bacon.

Remove from oven and serve immediately or store until ready to serve. These can easily be reheated in the microwave or oven.

Other delicious bacon appetizer recipes you may like

We love just about anything wrapped in bacon. And while Grumpy doesn't really care for brussels sprouts, he absolutely loved these Bacon Wrapped Brussels Sprouts! The spicy maple syrup and lemon aioli dipping sauces were perfect for this recipe. There is truth to the words that bacon makes everything better!

Buffalo Chicken flavors are also very popular and this recipe for Bacon Wrapped Buffalo Chicken Bites are a natural winner. These spicy little bites are delicious with the Blue Cheese Ranch Dipping sauce!

It doesn't have to be wrapped in bacon to be delicious. Just add some bacon and your good to go too! These Bacon and Egg Cucumber Bites will peak the curiosity of your guests and one bite will make them go back for another.

This recipe for Bacon, Herb & Garlic Stuffed Mini Peppers is made with mini yellow and red peppers. They are a cheese filled treat that is topped with bacon and are another party favorite!

Love that sweet heat sweet chili flavor? Give this Sweet Chili Lime Chicken with Cilantro Couscous a try! This is a stir fry that is ready in just 30 minutes!

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