Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese = Grown-up grilled cheese!

Welcome to the October 30th, 2016 edition of Sunday Scratchups: Your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery store sales, frugal ingredients, and seasonal garden bounty. Up this week, Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese Sandwiches! Why? Bacon is seasonally on sale, and, well…

… it’s been a really good year for garden peppers. I just picked the last of mine and still had these sitting around after making a big pot of chili and freezing several more bags. Then I found a block of cream cheese in the fridge, so initially thought about making jalapeño poppers — but then realized that grilled cheese would be more comforting and filling on a brisk fall day! Thus: Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese was born.

Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese

Ingredients

4 small to medium jalapeño peppers (adjust quantity to taste)
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic
8 oz cream cheese, softened
8 slices sourdough bread
Butter
8 pieces bacon, cooked
Shredded or sliced cheddar, to taste

Directions

Remove stems from your jalapeños, scrape out the membranes and seeds, then dice. Saute diced peppers in olive oil over medium heat until softened and starting to brown. Add garlic and saute briefly, then remove from heat and stir peppers & garlic into cream cheese.

Spread one side of each slice of bread with butter. Spread the jalapeño-cream cheese mixture thickly on the other side of one piece of bread, then place butter-side-down in cast iron grill pan or skillet. Add bacon, breaking pieces to fit on sandwich, then add shredded or sliced cheddar to taste. Top with the second piece of bread, butter-side-up.

Cook each side of your sandwich over medium heat until both sides are browned and your cheese is nicely melted, then enjoy.

(Tip: If you hate chopping peppers as much as I do, just give them a short whirl in a little food chopper. I use a Ninja Express Chop, and love it for small jobs like this one when it’s silly to drag out a whole big food processor — super handy.)

What more could you ask for in a sandwich, really?

You have your smooth melted cheese, chewy bacon, crisply toasted bread, and that little jalapeño kick to tie everything together. Most of the heat in the peppers is in the seeds and membranes, so you just have a slight burn here. This helps balance out the mild cream cheese and lets you mash up the flavor of a jalapeño popper with the comforting familiarity of a grilled cheese sandwich.

This isn’t your basic kids’ grilled cheese — why not kick it up a notch by jalapeño poppering yours, and enjoy! 🙂

Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese, printable recipe

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Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese = Grown-up grilled cheese!

This isn’t your basic kids’ grilled cheese — why not kick it up a notch by jalapeño poppering yours, and enjoy! 

Course: dinner, lunch

Servings: 4

Author: Rachel Singer Gordon

Ingredients

• 4 jalapeño peppers (adjust quantities to taste)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 8 slices sourdough bread
• butter
• 8 pieces cooked bacon
• sliced or shredded cheddar

Instructions

1. Remove stems from your jalapeños, scrape out the membranes and seeds, then dice.
2. Saute diced peppers in olive oil over medium heat until softened and starting to brown.
3. Add garlic and saute briefly, then remove from heat and stir peppers & garlic into cream cheese.
4. Spread one side of each slice of bread with butter.
5. Spread the jalapeño-cream cheese mixture thickly on the other side of one piece of bread, then place butter-side-down in cast iron grill pan or skillet.

6. Add bacon, breaking pieces to fit on sandwich, then add shredded or sliced cheddar to taste.

7. Top with the second piece of bread, butter-side-up.
8. Cook each side of your sandwich over medium heat until both sides are browned and your cheese is nicely melted, then enjoy.

Recipe Notes

Note: Make these in batches -- my small grill pan makes one sandwich at a time; my large skillet makes two. 

Tip: If you hate chopping peppers as much as I do, just give them a short whirl in a little food chopper. 

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