Happy 2026, glad to be back. A much needed break, and ready to get crackin. I hope you enjoyed the Christmas gift post – shows you just how much content we throw at you. Over NINETY posts in a year?! C’mon now. It took me a little bit to gather the numbers, but I wanted to be transparent in just how much money we took in last year. After paying for the site, hosting, and shipping out of seasonings, stickers.. our overall income for 2025 was $0.
You know it’s a journey of love.. and this week – our journey takes us to Nebraska. If you’ve never heard of the runza, welcome to the club. Let me learn you up
The Prep Table
So some German immigrants brought with them this idea of a ground beef, cabbage stuffed bread pocket and called it a Runza. Some lady said that’s a great idea and made it a fast-food staple in flyover country. I’ll look forward to my Nebraskan visit to see just how well I did – but let’s start off with some frozen bread dough. Threw it on the counter and was going to wait it out until I got called into work. Put it in the microwave to keep it clean and after I put the fires out, came back to do some runza things.
This might be the last you see of this pan. It’s served it purpose – and has long been time to replace it. But today, we’re throwing in the ground beef and onions with some salt and pepper. I didn’t over season, but easily could’ve added a more beefier, Montreal, Spice House blend to make it a little more fun. Like I said earlier, simple is good, and it was here too.
Once the meat and onions cooked down a bit, I added in the shredded cabbage and let it all cook down. Once the filling was combined, blended, smelling good – it was time to make our bread pocket. Save your laughs, I did the best I could.
The Process
Took a ball of the dough, flour dusted and did my best to roll it out and flatten it evenly. This was definitely not my strong point, but still had to give it a try. Put roughly 1/4 Cup of filling into the pocket and rolled it up. Placed the seam down and let it reside on the pan until ready to bake.
Nearly 10/10 times, I cook for only me. MrsForensicBBQ ain’t eating meat – so I’ll have a lot of leftovers. If they’re an easy freezer leftover, I’m happy. These should be just fine to reheat later, so we’re going to make a DOZEN RUNZAS
Dozen Runzas with an egg wash on top. Now, I was also informed that the crinkle fry was a necessary side, so the crinkle fry it was. We’re going to bake ’em in the RecTeq and see how they turn out.
This Sunday was to be dedicated to Nebraska, but work had other ideas. By the time I got back home, it was already dark. By the time I hand rolled all them dough bread pockets, it was very dark. But I’ll let you enjoy what these things looked at before the bake.
The Result
Well damn! The bread baked and these things were huge. I did place some American cheese in a few of them – as I couldn’t find a general consensus on the most traditional. So why not both. Not a bad idea to throw the cheese in there, I enjoyed it.
Nicely done Nebraska. It was just as simple, homey, rustic, basic.. everything I’d want from middle USA. Here’s the thing – to me, it tasted like a giant heavy White Castle hamburger. You can eat only one, and I can’t wait to crack into see how the freezer ones held up. Family said it was good, but I haven’t tried on my own yet.
Nebraska Runza.. if this is what 2026 is going to bring at ForensicBBQ.com – we’re in for a ride. Happy New Year!