Bacon Jalapeño Poppers is the ultimate snack-crispy, spicy, and cheesy! Stuffed with Cheddar and cream cheese, they are super easy to make with the very simple ingredients. Make them 3 different ways: bake, grill or air fry them!
Bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers are creamy and cheesy on the inside, crispy on the outside and so very good. Just imagine fresh jalapeños stuffed with gooey cheese, wrapped in smokey bacon and baked until perfectly crisp. Absolute snack heaven, but for me personally, bacon and jalapeños are my perfect comfort food lunch!
Why you'll love this recipe
Having a party? These bacon jalapeño poppers is the perfect way to celebrate! They are easy, spicy, can be made 3 different ways (air fryer, grill or oven) and no-one can resist the crispy bacon! It's the ultimate appetizer or game day crowd-pleaser.
Ingredients
Jalapeños: Make sure to choose medium or larger sized jalapeños so that you can easily stuff them with as much cheese as you want.
Cheese: My favorite cheese to use for stuffed jalapeños are cream cheese, shredded Cheddar cheese or shredded Mexican blend. You can't go wrong with using cream cheese only either!
Spices: Seriously, this stuff is great: smoked paprika, garlic powder, pepper and salt. Using this particular spice combination is my favorite trick for making the bacon jalapeño poppers.
How to make Bacon Jalapeño Poppers
The star of this recipe is the jalapeño. I usually choose medium sized jalapeños that are not too small because I do want to stuff them with as much cheese as they can possibly fit, right? Each jalapeño gets sliced in half, with the seeds scooped out. That step tames most of the heat, otherwise they become unbearable to eat.
For stuffing I like to use a combination of whipped cream cheese and shredded Cheddar cheese, but you can also use Mexican blend as well. It's easy to add the stuffing mixture inside the hollow jalapeño halves as long as those peppers are not too small.
The next step is to wrap the cheese filled jalapeño with bacon.
Poke a toothpick through the end of the bacon so it doesn't move when cooking. I learned that the bacon starts to shrink when you cook it and the pepper would become unwrapped. You can remove the toothpick once the jalapeño poppers are done.
Now that we have those jalapeños stuffed and wrapped, it's time to choose the method of cooking them. You can cook them in the air fryer, bake them in the oven or grill them!
How to air fry bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers
To cook bacon jalapeño poppers with minimal fat and oil, use an air-fryer: 18 min on 400F.
How to bake jalapeño poppers
To bake them in the oven: 20 min at 400 F.
I highly recommend using a baking rack to make bacon jalapeño poppers to prevent soggy bacon. The reason for the sogginess is that as the part of the bacon which is touching the baking sheet is also touching all the juices and drippings that come off the bacon and jalapeño as it's cooking, which prevents it from crisping up.
How to grill bacon jalapeño poppers
To grill the jalapeño poppers: 23 min at 375-400 F.
- Use indirect heat grilling. To do that have 2 burners on medium-high heat (about 375-400 F. ) and 2 burners off.
- Oil the grills of your grates with no flame underneath and place the poppers on top. Close the lid and cook for 23-26 minutes.
- Your poppers should be most of the way cooked and the fat on the bacon most of the way rendered.
- Oil the sides of the grill with flames under and move your poppers to the direct heat side of the grill and grill both sides for about 2-3 minutes to crisp up the bacon.
Bacon jalapeño Poppers
Ingredients
Stuffing mixture
- 6 oz cream cheese softened to room temperature
- ½ cup cheddar cheese freshly shredded
- 1 green onion sliced extra thin
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ⅛ teaspoon pepper
Poppers
- 5 whole jalapenos cut in half lengthwise and seeds and membranes removed
- 10 whole pieces of bacon
- toothpicks if needed
Instructions
- In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the cream cheese, green onion, garlic powder, salt, smoked paprika, pepper, and shredded cheese.
- Stuff each jalapeno with about 1-1 ½ tablespoons of filling.
- Wrap one whole piece of bacon around each pepper tightly so the filling won't ooze out.
- Secure with toothpicks if needed.
Bake
- Preheat oven to 375F. Once hot, place the poppers on a wire rack. Alternatively, if you don't have a wire rack, you could also rotate them every so often while they're baking. Though, this is messy and can still leave room for soggy bacon.
Grill
- Preheat your grill to be ready for indirect heat grilling-have 2 burners on medium-high heat and 2 burners off. You are aiming for about 375-400 F.
- Oil the grills of your grates with no flame underneath and place the poppers on top. Close the lid and cook for 23-26 minutes.
- Your poppers should be most of the way cooked and the fat on the bacon most of the way rendered.
- Oil the sides of the grill with flames under and move your poppers to the direct heat side of the grill and grill both sides for about 2-3 minutes to crisp up the bacon.
Air Fryer method
- Preheat air fryer to 400 F. and cook for 18 minutes.
- Remove to a clean plate and enjoy hot.
Tips on making Bacon Jalapeño Poppers
- Try not to wrap the bacon too tight, as it shrinks and forces the melted cheeses out.
- I always leave some seeds in for an extra kick and sometimes leave all of them in one popper (2 halves) as a surprise for the lucky eater.
FAQ
What kind of bacon should I use? Get the thinnest sliced bacon you can find.
My cheese came out gritty - what did I do wrong? Don't use pre-shredded cheddar. I recommend using freshly shredded cheese as it melts nicer.
Toothpick tips: Sometimes toothpicks catch on fire when cooked on the grill specifically (not in the oven). You can avoid this slightly by soaking the toothpicks in water for 30 minutes before grilling. Even with soaking they still may catch on fire when they're cooking on the direct heat side because they're so small. I can usually get the bacon to stick to itself while wrapping without toothpicks. About 3 out of my 10 each time I make these need a toothpick for help holding together. This will depend greatly on the particular slice of bacon.
Grill tips: If you don't cook the poppers with indirect heat first the bacon will burn and all the cream cheese mixture will ooze out before the jalapeno is soft and nice.
Can I use different cheese? You can switch out the type of shredded cheese. Monterey jack or pepper jack are also yummy options.
What size jalapeños should I use? I used as large of jalapeños as I could find. If you use more than 5 whole jalapeños you will need more pieces of bacon. If you use tiny jalapeños you won't need a whole slice of bacon.
Corina says
I made these with chipotle cheese inside it was so good I can’t wait to make more. I just baked them
Olya says
Great choice of cheese!