On The Grill: Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers

August is almost at its end, but there’s still some time to get in some delicious barbecuing! I love a good barbecue, but if you’re anything like me you need something to snack on while your grilling all that meat. One of my favorite snacks to throw on the grill is: Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers! These babies are pretty quick to prep (about 10 minutes) and are done in just about the same amount of time. They offer a quick bite with a a slightly spicy kick which you can adjust as you’ll see below.

First, let’s look at what you’ll need:

Fresh Jalapeño peppers

1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese

Bacon

Toothpicks

Simple enough, right? Ok, so first things first, go outside and start up your grill this way you can throw your pipers right on as soon as you finish prepping.

1. Now you’re going to take your jalapeños and half them as shown below:

2. Once halved, you simply scoop out the seeds to leave the half nice and concave like below:

– Now during this step I like to step up the ante a little and what I’ll do is scoop out most of my peppers fully and then just leave a few with the seeds still in them. This will guarantee an extra kick that’s lost otherwise. Now if you don’t like spicy, I’d suggest you fully remove the seeds, but if you’re up for the extra kick just make sure you mark the peppers with extra seeds so nobody gets a hot surprise. (Personally, I like to mix them all in and see who gets lucky, lol 🙂 )

3. With your peppers scooped, grab the cream cheese and using a butter knife start filling the with cream cheese like so:

Don’t worry if they seem a bit messy, remember you will be wrapping them in bacon…see:

4. Depending on how big the pepper half is, you’ll be using between 1-2 slices of bacon to wrap around it. Though it may seem excessive, remember that the bacon will shrink so it does not matter if the bacon seems to overwhelm the pepper. Once you wrap it well, secure the bacon using toothpicks.

5. Once you have them all ready take them out and place them on the grill. You’ll find that some of the cream cheese will start to drip, but don’t sweat it. I like to keep a watch on them and when I see one is dripping to much I turn it over or place it on a different spot on the grill that may not be as hot. Make sure that you allow them to cook thoroughly on all sides as it is bacon and must be cooked all the way through.

6. Once you see they’re all cooked, remove from the grill and give them a minute or to before chomping on them so you don’t burn your tongue. After that it’s fair game! ENJOY!!!