Tasty Bites: Healthy Jalapeño Poppers

By Candy, RN (Steele the Day)

We’re back in the garden today and harvesting peppers. Way too many jalapeños there! I’ve chopped and frozen dozens of them because they are definitely one of my favorite food groups. They are perfect on salads, in soups, and in casseroles, as well as in my tasty Burrito in a Bowl. But this is one of my favorite ways to eat them – poppers!

I first had jalapeño poppers in a restaurant – jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese, breaded, and deep-fried. They were awesome. Now that I’ve reinvented the recipe, I really like these better because the flavor of the pepper isn’t all covered up with breading and grease.

No formal recipe here, just directions and three ingredients. Well, four if you count gloves.

First, glove your hands. You’ll thank me later. Nothing hurts worse than the capsaicin from a hot pepper rubbed in your eye, and washing your hands with soap and water won’t remove it. You can get some of it off my soaking your hands in milk or rubbing some sour cream on them (any dairy product, actually) but sometimes it will still linger for days.

Your ingredients are jalapeños, fresh goat cheese, and raspberry jam.

Preheat your grill. If a jalapeño cooker isn’t one of your kitchen gadgets, make yourself a super-duper jalapeño cooker like I did by folding heavy duty aluminum foil and making little grooves for the peppers to nest. Slice a fresh jalapeno in half lengthwise and lay the peppers open side up in your fancy new pepper cooker. Scoop as much of the seeds and ribs out as you want; that’s where most of the heat resides. I found a grapefruit spoon works great. Spoon as much goat cheese as you want into the popper, and then put on the hot grill with the lid shut for about 4-6 minutes. Remove, and drizzle some warmed raspberry jam on top.

Goat cheese has fewer calories, less fat, and is higher in calcium than regular cream cheese. Seriously, you won’t be able to stop eating these. Enjoy!

Candy Steele is a registered nurse who has worked with cardiac patients for over thirty years. “Functional foods” have become her passion, and she enjoys sharing her love of cooking, a random life and a faithful Jesus with her friends at Steele (the Day). She is blessed with three grown children, a new daughter-in-law, and a kind and patient husband who only knows how to fix popcorn (but she’s OK with that).