Do you love spicy food? Can you handle a little heat? If so, you’ll want to try this at home.
We can’t claim to have invented these recipes, but we’ve been inspired by them for sure.
As we have gotten a little bit older, our stomachs have become a little more sensitive to spicy food. I absolutely love spicy food, and insist on keeping at least three types of hot sauces in the refrigerator at all times.
Wes may be scarred from my first attempt at chicken wings. I didn’t look at any recipe and simply baked the chicken in the over then put sauce over it. It wasn’t the worst meal we’e had, but I’m proud to say our skills in cooking chicken wings have improved immensely.
The bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers are incredibly simple to make and so sinfully delicious. They are good to eat at home and also good for parties.
The most time-consuming part of the poppers is cutting up the japapenos and removing seeds (or not, depending on how spicy you want them. I try to remove most of the seeds, but some are left behind for the extra kick when I make them).
Important: Cover your hands when you work with hot peppers such as jalapenos or habaneros.
There was a point in my life that I could cut peppers with my bare hands and experience little more than some mild burning. While a little unpleasant, it was nothing to cry about. Then, I must have gotten my hands on some particularly spicy peppers, and my hands burned for hours afterwards. It was bad to the point I was in a lot of pain unless I soaked my hands in ice water.
I tried basically every method to ease the burning that the Internet suggested-from lemon juice to dish soap. Nothing helped me except for ice water and time.
Now that that PSA is out of the way, back to the food. Cut them in half and you can make a popper out of both halves, or you can cut just a little bit off the top and make them into little “boats”, keeping the bulk of the pepper for one popper. My Dad likes to make his that way whereas I usually cut them in half.
Once you’ve cut them how you want, you want to stuff them with plain cream cheese. There are a variety of recipes for poppers that call for you to mix a lot more ingredients inside. You certainly can do it this way, but we like the simplicity of the three ingredients: Jalapenos, cream cheese, bacon.
When you’ve stuffed the peppers with cream cheese, take your favorite bacon (We recommend Jones Dairy Farm Dry-Aged Hickory Smoked. Shop Jones Dairy farm here) and cut each slice in half. One half of a slice should wrap around half a pepper. If you are making it my Dad’s way, you may be able to use a whole piece to wrap around the pepper.
Pre-heat the oven to 375 and cook the peppers until bacon is cooked. You can leave them in longer for a bit more crispiness.
Here is the finished product:
Now, for the chicken wings. Wes and I love this recipe. For this, we were inspired by The Black Peppercorn, and I’ve made a variation of this recipe twice, once with jalapenos and once with habaneros.
I documented my experience with the habanero strawberry chicken wings on Megan’s Musings
Your marinade basically consists of strawberry jam, lime juice, and either habaneros or jalapenos. Your desired spiciness will be achieved through how many seeds you include with your peppers.
Whether you use jalapenos or habaneros, the strawberry jam serves as a perfect counterpart to the spiciness of the dish. The flavors come together quite well despite the fact it may not sound like a likely combination.
Have you tried these recipes or do you have variations on them? Let us know below.
Happy eating. 🙂
The Peckish Pair 