Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers

Jalapeño peppers stuffed with a zingy cilantro-lime cream cheese filling and wrapped up in crispy bacon. These bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers are always a favorite party or game-day snack.

Ah, Jalapeño poppers. Denizen of the appetizer table and frequent snack choice for all sorts of get-togethers, particularly sports-focused gatherings.

My version stays mostly true to the classic, but it has a zippy, creamy cheese filling flavored with fresh lime juice, honey, and cilantro.

How to Make Them

The first thing to love about bacon jalapeno poppers is the flavors: the combination of crispy bacon and cream cheese-stuffed fresh jalapenos are perfect together. The second thing to love is that you can prep them a day ahead so they’re ready to bake when the party starts.

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Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers

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5 from 2 reviews

Oven-baked Jalapeño poppers wrapped in crispy bacon and stuffed with a zingy cilantro-lime cream cheese filling are the perfect party appetizer.

• Author: April Anderson
• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 50 minutes
• Yield: 20 poppers 1x
• Category: Appetizers
• Method: Baking
• Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 10 (3 to 4-inch long) jalapeño peppers
• 4 teaspoons lime juice
• Zest of one lime
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 10 slices of bacon

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with foil and place an oven-safe baking rack on top of the foil.
2. Prep the peppers by slicing off the stems. Slice each pepper in half lengthwise and clean out the ribs and seeds. Rinse the peppers in water to remove any stubborn seeds.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the lime juice with the honey. Add the salt, cream cheese, and cilantro. Using an electric mixer, mix it all together until well combined. You can do this by hand with a spoon, but I find it’s much easier with a mixer.
4. Slice each piece of bacon in half so you have 20 shorter strips. Fill each pepper with approximately one tablespoon of the filling. Depending on the size of your peppers, you may need a little more or less, so wait to wrap them with the bacon until you’ve filled them. That way, if you need to steal some filling from one to top off another, you can do that.
5. Once all of the peppers are filled with cheese, wrap each with a piece of bacon. I like to wrap them so the ends of the bacon meet underneath the pepper. That way, the peppers stay wrapped while they bake. If you’re worried, you can always secure the bacon with toothpicks – just remember to remove them when you serve the poppers.
6. Place the bacon-wrapped peppers on top of the baking rack. While they bake, the bacon fat will drip into the baking sheet, and your poppers won’t get soggy from sitting in the grease.
7. Bake the poppers for 20 to 25 minutes or until the bacon is cooked through and crispy. 

Notes

• If you don’t love a lot of heat, look for jalapeño peppers with smooth, unblemished skin. Jalapeño peppers get spicier as they age, so you can tell if they’ve been sitting around for a while if they have white flecks and blemished, wrinkled skin. 
• Removing the ribs and seeds will also reduce the heat factor. 
• Be sure to buy peppers that are 3 to 4 inches long. Any bigger than that, and you won’t have enough of the filling, so you’ll need to make extra.
• Use thin bacon slices and not thick-sliced bacon. Thinner slices will cook faster and end up crispier.
• You can assemble the poppers a day ahead and refrigerate them in an airtight container until you’re ready to bake them.
• I don’t recommend freezing them. I’ve tried prepping them ahead and freezing them for later, and they are not as good after you bake them. The cream cheese doesn’t freeze well, and the filling ends up runny.

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1 popper
• Calories: 103
• Sugar: 1.5g
• Sodium: 186.8mg
• Fat: 9.5g
• Saturated Fat: 4.2g
• Carbohydrates: 1.9g
• Fiber: 0.2g
• Protein: 2.5g
• Cholesterol: 20.7mg

The nutrition is an estimate only. It was calculated using Nutrifox, an online nutrition calculator.

How to Choose Jalapeños for Poppers

It wasn’t until I helped make batches of poppers for an event earlier this year that I discovered that not all jalapeños are super spicy. The poppers we made were quite mild, so I got curious and did a little studying on the matter.

Here’s the deal on the spicy factor: the older a jalapeño is, the hotter it is. Younger jalapeño peppers with smooth and unblemished skins are usually milder than ones that are older. You can tell one that has been sitting in the bin at the store for a while because its skin will be sort of blemished and flecked with white.

I learned this from a helpful article on Simply Recipes about jalapeño peppers. Since reading it, I’ve had good luck picking ones that are smooth-skinned, blemish-free, and don’t burn my face off when I eat them.

For my bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, I like to choose peppers that are about 3 to 4 inches long. This is a good size for an appetizer. Any bigger, and they get a bit cumbersome. For this recipe, I used ten jalapeno peppers.

Tips for the Best Jalapeno Poppers

If there’s anything I already knew about jalapeño peppers – or any potentially spicy pepper, for that matter – is that I have to wear gloves when I prep them. I’ve burned my eyes one too many times when I’ve gone without gloves (even hours after handling them). So word to the wise: wear gloves when you make these jalapeno poppers. Even the mild peppers have spicy little insides.

Most of the jalapeño poppers I’ve had in the past were stuffed with just cream cheese, without any bells and whistles. They are delicious, but for my version, I wanted to step up the filling a bit and make it a little more zingy.

The lime adds a nice citrus flavor to the cream cheese mixture, and the honey gives it just a touch of sweetness. Both of these flavors pair very nicely with the peppers and bacon.

Once you have your prepped peppers and cream cheese filling, you are ready to stuff and wrap the peppers.

I like to use an oven-safe wire rack to bake the poppers. That way, as the bacon releases fat, it drips down into the pan. The poppers aren’t sitting in it, so the bacon crisps up all over instead of just frying in the fat accumulated in the pan. I also like to line the pan with aluminum foil for easy clean-up.

They’re great all on their own, but a side of ranch dressing for dipping is not a bad idea. It’s a very good one, in fact.

I love how the cheese filling gets a little toasty in the oven. Just enough honey adds a touch of sweet caramelization that’s delicious with the zingy lime and smoky bacon.

For your next game day get-together or party, I hope you pass around some bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers!

Happy game day snacking,

More Recipes with Jalapeños

This jalapeño popper post has been updated from the archives. It was first published in June 2019.