Jalapeño poppers

 November 27, 2022

   

Cindy's been working her way through recipes she bookmarked from In Praise of Veg and, when a surprise delivery of fancy vegan cream cheese arrived at our house, she knew it was time to bust out these poppers. The original recipe takes regular dairy cream cheese and fancies it up with smoked paprika, garlic powder and coriander, but we just used the pickled red onion and dill Damona cream cheese. We lazily used real cheddar on top for guaranteed meltiness.

With the cream cheese substitution it's a very simple recipe, that really comes down to your dexterity in stuffing the little jalapeños -  I managed the stuffing reasonably well, but then half of them tipped over in the oven and needed a bit of emergency re-stuffing. The final result was great: our jalapeños still packed a bit of a punch, and the Damona and cheddar only partly smoothed it over, so it's a spicy treat, but definitely a treat.

Jalapeño poppers

(based on a recipe from Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg)

12 jalapeño chillies

200g flavoured vegan cream cheese

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (for sprinkling)

100g cheddar, grated

Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking tray with paper.

With a small knife cut a long panel out of one side of your chillies - a little pointy oval maybe 1-2cm wide at its widest point. Scrape out the seeds and innards - rinse them to make sure you get as many seeds out as possible.

Press the cream cheese into the peppers, trying to smush it right into the hollow, but leaving a little indent on top and then stuffing the cheddar into it.

Stand the poppers up on your baking tray - try to arrange them so they're supported by each other or the tray edge so they don't tip over and leak out all the melty cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cheese goes golden on top. 

Sprinkle with smoked paprika and serve.