Sausage Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers
Ingredients
Directions
This is for folks that like it spicy! We’re going to coat a few slices of jalapenos with cream cheese and shredded cheddar, then stick a piece of Pederson’s Jalapeno and Cheese Sausage in between them. Just to make sure they stay together, and because we love bacon - we’re going to tie them up with a slice of Pederson’s Hickory Smoked bacon. I’m going to go ahead and let y’all know these were the best Jalapeno Poppers I’ve ever eaten. I don’t even know if it’s fair to compare them to your typical poppers. This might be a whole new category and it’ll soon be a staple at my family cookouts.
Now, there’s no way around making a mess here. Just accept the mess, and keep a towel close. For this one we’ve chopped the ends from the jalapenos, sliced them in half, deveined and deseeded, then washed them for good measure. I do that to ensure there’s no seeds left, and I think it helps take a bit of heat off the super hot ones. From there you’ll take a slice of jalapeno, lather it up with cream cheese, press in a bit of cheddar, and put two of those on either side of a half cut piece of sausage. The goal here is to guarantee a bite of meat for each bite of pepper - and the sausage helps to do that. From there we took a slice of PNF bacon and wrapped it around the jalapeno and sausage sandwich, sticking it in place with a toothpick or two. Now, as a tip - if you stick one end of the bacon under your finger, then wrap it around towards the other side of the pepper, once you start getting towards the other end of the bacon pull it back towards the end you have under your finger - if you can’t make it back around the top, try to get it to end up directly on the opposing side. If you can pull this off you can get away with 1 toothpick instead of two. I made 8 of these, and was able to do that for 6 of them. If one piece of bacon isn’t enough (and who could blame you there), wrap it with two! We found that the addition of sausage made for a nice meat to pepper ratio with one piece of bacon.
From there, you can throw them in the oven on 400°F for about 20 mins, cook them over an open fire, or put them on an enclosed griddle for 20-30 minutes. An oven is the easiest way to make sure they cook evenly. We did ours on a covered griddle.
Let me re-emphasize how good these were. I have never had a better popper, I think I shed a tear and it wasn’t from the heat. I consider myself quite the popper connoisseur. Matter of fact - if you think you have an addition to this recipe, or a method that will produce a better popper, talk to us on instagram and tell them to let Brandon know your suggestions. I’m all ears. In the meantime, try this recipe. I promise it won’t disappoint, these are good fresh off the heat and straight from the fridge. Throw ‘em in a tupperware or ziplock and get them in the cooler for your next outing, you’ll make friends everywhere you go.