The Perfect Jalapeno Poppers
Ingredients:
2 bricks of Cream Cheese(16oz) for 10 peppers Halved. (adjust amount if you will be using full peppers and stuffing them)
3 parts Italian bread crumbs
1 part Panko
Roughly .75 tablespoon of salt per 2 cups of breading ( salt to taste, different breadcrumb providers need different amounts of salt)
5-6 large eggs for 10 halved peppers (20 poppers)
Corn oil (for frying, optional if Air Frying)
Apple Cider Vinegar (1/2 cup for a large pot of water)
Instructions:
Set a large pot of water on the stove, turn on stove to HIGH, add vinegar and a pinch of salt.
While waiting for water to boil Halve the peppers on a cutting board and using a knife remove seeds if you want poppers to not be spicy.
You should pull the cream cheese out of the cardboard package and set the cheese(still in the metal case) into a bowl a warm water.
Pour your bread crumbs and Panko into a bowl and add salt + any other seasoning (I like garlic, mustard powder and onion powder.). Take your eggs into a separate bowl, add salt and beat the hell out of them (if I need to tell you to crack them you shouldn’t be doing this.).
After water is boiling toss the halved peppers in and wait for their color to just turn a dull green. should take roughly 5 minutes.
Either drain them through a colander or if you’re lazy and dont like to clean pull them out with a slotted spoon or similar device and place back to cutting board.
If you left the seeds in, now is the time to remove them if you want a Mild-Medium Popper, if you want spicy, Leave the seeds in.
Now that the cheese is malleable and your Halved peppers are soft and ready; put the bricks of cream cheese into a quart Ziploc and cut off a small part off the corner.
Pipe the cream cheese into the halved peppers and dont worry about leftover cream cheese, you will need it for the secret part of poppers.
After all the halved peppers have cream cheese in them, place them into a tray or bowl and pipe the remaining cheese in the bag over all the peppers.
Mix the peppers with the cream cheese so they have a generous coating of cheese both inside the pepper and on the bottom of the pepper (this gives you the best crunchy coating on the popper it will blow your mind.)
Move the peppers from the cream cheese bowl 2-4 at a time into your breading bowl and shake them up till they are covered in the crumbs. Using the wet-hand dry-hand technique move them from the crumbs into the egg and then back to the crumbs. Then move them onto a large plate or tray to hold and dry for their last breading.
Move through the above step till all your poppers are done with their first egg and bread coating.
Take the poppers that have the 2 coatings of breadcrumbs and 1 coating of egg and repeat the breading process. Normally 3 bread coatings (1 bread coating with a cream cheese binding and 2 bread coatings with egg binding.) will cover all the cream cheese. Pay close and special attention, if the poppers have cream cheese exposed, patch those bad boys up.
FOR OIL
After they are all covered, bring your oil up to 330-345 degrees. When your oil hits that temp, turn the heat down a little so it stays that temp. Add poppers to the oil, as many as it can handle. leave a large space between the oil and the top of the pot. They do not take long, remove them when the color of the popper is golden brown. They are in too long if hear lots of pops, that is the sound of the cream cheese boiling out of the inside of the popper.
FOR AIR-FRYER
After they are all covered, run the air fryer at 370 for a minute or two. add as many poppers as you can without jamming them in. Cook the poppers at 330-340 for about 5 minutes each side or until golden brown.
These poppers, once cooked, can be frozen for a long time and reheated in an air-fryer at 370 degrees or an oven at 350.