I recently visited my dad in San Antonio for a week…and of course we did nothing but eat a ton of southern food, drank and overdosed on movies. That’s MY idea of the perfect vacation.
One of the best things I ate (and I ate a lot of yummy things while there) were these fabulous little things called Jalapeño Poppers. I had never had them before and OMG I just had to make them for myself!
My dad verbally told me how to do them, plus I checked out this great site called The Pioneer Woman Cooks for guidance. I highly recommend her site!
One of the best thing about these is that you can do the prep work the night before you want to cook them.
HERE WE GO…
Ingredients & Implements:
10 Jalapeños
One Package Cream Cheese
One Package Regular Bacon
Gloves, Spoon, Cutting Board, Knife, Trash Bag, Toothpicks
Step 1: Wear gloves!!! Cut off the stems of the jalapeños. This is not necessary, but do it anyway. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon, along with any visible white goop. BE CAFEFUL! I had a 10 minute setback with jalapeño juice flying into my eye.
It is completely necessary to cook with your cats in the room…Mia thought I was cooking for her until she got a good whif and was like…HELL NO. PS. She would just die if she know I posted a less than flattering photo of her. Hee hee, don’t tell on me!
Step 2: Keep it clean! Put all the remaining bits into a little bag to throw away. Don’t wash it all down the sink or you’ll have to deal with the fumes and nobody wants that.
Step 3: Spread in the cream cheese…I kept mine out for a few minutes so it would be soft and easy to work with. Spoon worked fine. It’s going to be wrapped…so who cares if it’s a little messy? (Sorry to my OCD friends reading this…I know this is hard for you.)
BLING!!! Check out my little cream cheesed minions below…
And now the bacon comes out…so of course, so does The Lola (below).
Step 4: Take an ENTIRE length of bacon and wrap it lengthwise. Other recipes say half or one third of a piece…but are you kidding me? That’s the best part! I didn’t quite have enough pieces of bacon to wrap each one fully…so some of them did get cut in half. I will not make this mistake again…NOM NOM NOM. I used a toothpick for the ones that did not have a full piece of bacon on them.
Oh, aren’t they cute? They are going to hang out in my fridge overnight until it’s time to cook them.
Final Step: Cook them in a single layer in the oven on a rack so the grease can drain. Cook at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes, turning them once during cooking. Make sure the bacon is fully cooked and BE CAREFUL when you pull them out of the oven…no one likes hot grease on them.
I have not cooked mine yet…so I’m going to end by cheating and posting photos of my dad’s poppers. His were much prettier than mine!
On a rack so they will drain…and then straight out of the oven.
Chef’s Rule: If there are some poppers that do not meet your “standards for serving”…you get to eat those before your dinner guests arrive. SCORE!