Crispy, creamy, cheesy jalapeño poppers you can’t stop eating. 🌶️🧀

My love language is never showing up to an event with nothing. And these jalapeno poppers are one of my favorite things to bring and eat at parties and I am so craving these, so let's get started. The prep for these is surprisingly easy. I start by cooking some bacon. You can use bacon bits and save yourself a step, but I like to cook it fresh. Saute on both sides until it is golden brown and crispy. If you're cooking these on the stove, I highly recommend using a splatter guard. That way it makes less mess or you can also cook these in an air fryer. I want to put a paper towel. Okay, I'll put a paper towel. There's a paper towel. Look, look, look, Linda. The biggest reason why I love cooking the bacon from scratch is I like to keep some of that bacon fat. We're gonna stir that into the bread topping. It adds so much flavor. Oh, it's crunchy. Listen. Go ahead and chop up your crispy bacon. Now we make the filling. Oh, okay. I should have done a hairspray. I've got little hairs all over, but not in my food. One of these years, I'll show up in a hairnet. To a medium bowl, add your cream cheese. It will be easier to mash it if it's softened, but I've also done it cold. You see that? Add half a cup or two ounces of shredded medium cheddar cheese. Cheddar is my go-to, but you can change it up and use what you have on hand. Also add a quarter cup of chopped fresh chives or green onion. Now peel and mince one large garlic clove. Some of you have asked if I ever use pre-minced garlic, and the answer is no. Fresh garlic will always give you the best flavor, but you can definitely use a garlic press here to save yourself some time. To finish that off, season it with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Mash all of that together with a fork just until it's well combined. Maybe a potato masher would work good here too. I don't know. I'm almost there. Now we get to the exciting part, our star ingredient. Oh, that's a big one. You'll need about a pound of fresh jalapeno peppers. Cut them in half lengthwise going all the way through the stem. That will serve as a little handle. Dude, I'm really hoping I won't regret not using gloves because in case one of these is spicy and then I go to pick my nose later. I mean, I don't, I don't pick my nose. I'll lick the inside of one. Let's see. Sometimes one out of 20 is spicy. There's a little bit of a bite. Okay, it is spicy. It's burning now. My mouth is on fire. Use a teaspoon to scrape out the seeds and white membranes. Those parts can be extra spicy and we're creating space for the filling. Okay, I couldn't handle it anymore and Vidyam took over the seeding and he's doing a good job. I also like him with facial hair. Good job, honey. You like this? I like. Arrange your jalapeno peppers onto a parchment lined baking sheet and they're super easy to fill. Just use a teaspoon and fill them to the level of the pepper. You don't want them heaping over the top. Now we're going to make the easy crunchy bacon topping. Add your breadcrumbs to a small bowl and if you want to keep these gluten-free, you can totally use gluten-free breadcrumbs. Stir in some melted butter or bacon grease, which is what we're using for extra flavor. Then stir in your chopped crisp bacon. Top each jalapeno popper with about one teaspoon of the bacon crumb topping. Now transfer to your preheated oven and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 17 to 20 minutes or until the peppers are tender and the breadcrumb topping is golden brown. Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to dig into this. You can see the crumbs are like golden and crispy and the bacon is extra crispy already and they're done when you just squeeze up the side and it feels tender. I can't wait to eat these. I know they're like blazing hot right now. I'm just hoping that they're not like blazingly spicy. That's the biggest concern. Let's pick one for the taste test. You're not gonna give it up two minutes? Yeah, I guess I shouldn't burn my mouth. Let's wait two minutes. This is awkward. Now we're just gonna stand here. Is the camera still on? Um, no, I don't want to wait two minutes. Which one's gonna be mine? Get in my belly. Let's get this one. I just, I really hope it's not too spicy. It's gonna end up being one very interesting taste test. Here we go. We're just gonna do this. Oh, they're hot. Oh my goodness. And it is spicy. It's kind of burning my throat a little bit. Sometimes you get hot ones and sometimes they're totally mild. If you know how to tell the difference at the store, please let me know because I have zero clues. They all look the same to me. Gotta look under their tail. I don't see, I, that doesn't make any sense, honey. Oh, I want to eat more of it, but it's so hot. I think I burned my mouth a little bit, but it was so worth it. Ah, yummy yum. And the beauty of this recipe is they're good while they're still warm, but they're also really good when they're at room temperature or even cooled down. They are perfect for parties. I love that they're make ahead. And they always disappear fast. It's literally one of my favorite party appetizers. I personally get really happy when I see this show up at a party. I hope you guys totally love our jalapeno poppers. Find lots of great recipes in our cookbook if you haven't gotten your hands on it already. You can see I use my own cookbook a lot. It's like 50,000 tabs in here. All right, I'll link to that in the notes. Let me know if you guys have any recipe requests and we will see you on the next episode of Natasha's Kitchen. Oh, oh, also let me know where you guys spotted Sharky. We're definitely going to keep him rolling through this year because we just love to have him. That's so awkward. I just love to have him. Okay, I just, I'm gonna stop talking. I might be doing more eating. Oh, it's still so hot. Oh my, you hear the crunch? I'm telling you that topping is next level. And that's what makes these stand out from just basic jalapeno poppers. Don't skip it, okay? This is a fiery one, but I'm enjoying it. I do like it spicy. It's a spicy meatable. Okay, bye.