I want to write a cookbook of recipes that turn every food into jalapeno popper-inspired dishes.
The great jalapeno-popper takeover continues. Below are some of the other recipes inspired by cream cheese and spicy jalapeno.
- Jalapeno popper lettuce wraps
- Baked jalapeno poppers
- And jalapeno popper bean burgers
- Jalapeno popper hot dogs
- Jalapeno popper falafel
What will be next? Who knows. But this jalapeno popper mac n’ cheese dish combines the best flavors of a jalapeno popper into one big delicious casserole.
I did experiment with other cheeses. Because I felt a casserole dish with tubs of cream cheese would have been a bit too much. So I toned down the cream cheese aspect and added some swiss and white cheddar to give the sauce some more complex flavors, while still helping to balance out the hot jalapeno kick. The only thing that I can think of that would make it better would be to add some shredded chicken!
Time You Need
- ~10 minutes prep
- ~25 minutes cooking
- Yields: lots of mac n’ cheese
What You Need
- 1 pound of preferred pasta (I chose shells, but elbow macaroni noodles would work too!)
- 4 oz. cream cheese
- ½ cup shredded swiss
- 1 cup of shredded white cheddar
- 1 cup of breadcrumbs
- Salt & black pepper, to taste
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 cups of jalapeno
- 1 ½ cups of whole milk (or 2 cups if you want it to be creamier)
- Butter (to grease baking pan)
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
What You Do
- Preheat oven to 420.
- Bring a large pot of about 5 quarts of salted water to a boil.
- Add pasta and cook for about 7-8 minutes, until pasta is soft. Drain and remove pasta.
- Over medium-low heat, add milk, cream cheese, stir until cream cheese is completely mixed into the milk.
- Next, add salt, black pepper, cayenne, chicken bouillon, garlic powder and jalapeno.
- Stir in, then begin adding shredded cheese. Stir in small portions of cheese at a time, and make sure cheese completely melts into sauce before adding more. Repeat until out of cheese.
- Grease a glass baking pan. Add pasta, then pour sauce over. Stir everything so sauce coats evenly over the pasta.
- Add bread crumbs to the top (and even more shredded cheese if you wish!)
- Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes. Remove once the cheese is bubbling and melted, and bread crumbs are golden brown.
- Enjoy!