These were mighty tasty! I used only 7 or 8 jalapenos that I had on hand, half a package of cream cheese, and half a block of sharp cheddar cheese. Instead of chopping off the stem and top of the jalapeno, I tried to slice the stem in half with the rest of the jalapeno to have something to hold on to when breading. Worked great.
Ingredients:
- 20 large (4″) jalapeno peppers
- 1 package of cream cheese (8oz) at room temperature
- 200 g of extra old cheddar cheese (about 1/2lb)
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1.5 cups panko
- salt and pepper
Directions:
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with one egg until it is smooth and well combined.
- Shred the sharp cheddar cheese on the finer holes of a box grater so that the shreds are nice and fine. Mix this in with the cream cheese mixture, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Slice each jalapeno in half lengthwise and scoop the seeds and as much of the rib as you like out of the peppers.
- Stuff each jalapeno half with a heaping mound of cream cheese. The egg will bind with the cheesy interior to keep everything in it’s place.
- Lightly grease a shallow cooling rack which is small enough to sit on top of your baking sheet.
- Preheat the oven to 400F.
- To bread the jalapenos, flour goes in the first bowl. In the second bowl, beat the two remaining eggs and season liberally with salt and pepper. The panko goes in the third bowl.
- Grab a jalapeno pepper and roll it around in the flour. Dip the whole thing into the whisked eggs and turn it to make sure that the whole thing is well coated. Shake off any excess. Roll the eggy jalapeno in the panko, pressing down just gently as you turn, to coat it with crumbs.
- Lay the jalapenos onto the lightly oiled rack making sure that they don’t touch.
- Bake the poppers for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned and the crust is crusty.
