I know the story… you can only find a real bagel in New York City. I get it. It’s in the water, or whatever.
And trust me, when I go to New York, I do my best to hunt out a good bagel and it usually is noticeably better than most other places.
But, I still like the occasional bagel even if it’s just a normal bagel. One thing I’ve taken to doing lately is changing up what I put on the bagel which can change a normal bagel into a pretty delicious breakfast.
This Jalapeno Cream Cheese is my most recent creation which is fairly basic, but packed with flavor. You also can’t buy it in the stores!
Cheddar Jalapeno Cream Cheese
Equipment
Ingredients
- 16 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 4 ounces extra sharp cheddar, grated
- 2-3 jalapeno peppers, roasted
- 1 teaspoon crushed black pepper
- Pinch of salt
- Bagels for serving
Instructions
- Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Lay out jalapenos on a baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes, turning once halfway through until blistered and charred on all sides.
- Let peppers cool slightly, then cut the stems off each pepper, slice in half, and scrape out seeds. Dice roasted peppers.
- In a medium bowl, mash together cream cheese with roasted peppers, cheddar cheese, black pepper, and a pinch of salt. Stir together really well.
- Spread this immediately on toasted bagels or store in the fridge for up to a week.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Jalapeno Cream Cheese
Roasted.
Raw jalapenos would be a bit too intense in this Jalapeno Cream Cheese spread. Instead, by roasting them, they lose some of their intense heat and bite. Roasting also lets the flavor meld better with the cheeses.
It’s a win-win and definitely worth the few minutes it takes to roast them.
I actually roasted four, but ended up only using three which was plenty for a spread like this. Two would be fine if you want to turn down the heat a bit.
Remember though that the heat from the peppers will be massively tempered by a lot of cheese and a thick bagel.
Roast these guys at 450 degrees F. until they are blistered all over.
I didn’t even peel my peppers. Once they were roasted, I let them cool and then cut off the stems and scraped out the seeds. Then I just diced them up!
Getting Cheesy
Any cream cheese will work fine for this Jalapeno Cream Cheese recipe, but do find a really good extra sharp cheddar. You want to keep the ratio of cream cheese to cheddar at about 4-to-1 so it stays nice and spreadable so it’s a good idea to use a really flavorful cheddar.
It’s not totally necessary, but if you can let your cream cheese soften a bit, it’ll be easier to stir everything together.
Shred your cheddar and stir that in also. You should end up with about a cup of the stuff.
Go heavy on the pepper also. It adds a good punch to the spread.
Stir this all up really good.
I thought about processing this to blend the flavors more but decided to leave it chunky.
You can use this Jalapeno Cream Cheese spread right away or it will keep for at least a week in the fridge.
Probably won’t last that long if you’re a bagel eater though!
For a few basic ingredients, this is a much more flavorful spread than you can find in the store.
If you’re a bagel lover (even if you don’t live in NYC), try out the cheddapeno spread!
Leanne Downey
I can hardly wait to try this. It looks SO good. Seriously.
sippitysup
Ummm. I hate to embarrass you on you own blog, but “Cheddapeno Cheddapeno” is not a bagel schmear. I’m pretty sure it’s the lyrics from a Black Eyed Peas song. GREG
Nick
I’m actually working on a collaboration with them.
Gail H.
This is a must-make for next week-end…have several good, sharp cheddars in my cheese drawer (aka the meat drawer that we use for cheese) :) Thanks for this one!!
janet varga
Your culinary talents are a great addition to my recipe box to share with family who can’t seem to have any food HOT enough. Since they live in various states, food is still a great way to share good times-even if only on paper. Look forward to many more recipes.
rob dekoch
I am from Texas and grew up eating spread like this on bagels from Austin Bakeries but its also similar to an old family cheese log recipe. I can’t wait to make this and put it on everything. So glad the recipe doesn’t call for seeding the peppers. That always disturbs me :)
rob dekoch
I mean’t Austin bakeries (uncapitalized). Not a specific place.
Lynne Hartley
Ha, kinda funny since it does call for deseeding the peppers – it’s in the 2nd step “scrape out the seeds”
Emily
This was SO good. And very quick and simple to make. I just threw my jalapeños in my toaster oven to roast so that I didn’t have to heat up the whole oven for a couple minutes and that worked great! Thanks!
Chris Dean
I’m thinking of adding either pineapple or mango to this or maybe even bacon and you would have deconstructed poppers! But initially, I’ll just serve pineapple and bacon on the side. This recipe looks killer! Roasting the jalapenos is really smart!
Nick
Hey Chris! Nice ideas! I actually did a caramelized pineapple cream cheese a few years ago (https://www.crunchtimekitchen.com/caramelized-pineapple-cream-cheese/) it was very good. You could definitely kinda mash them together I think. good luck!
Steven Carlisle
This is one of my favorite spreads. I want a tad more heat so I’ll experiment with adding some chipotle in adobo.
Lynne Hartley
There’s no way there’s only 5g of fat in 4T – the cream cheese alone would have 202 calories and 20g of fat.
Nick Evans
Hi Lynne, thanks for the note. I use an automated service to get a rough estimate on nutrition info – it’s far from perfect, but I agree that it looks light on the amounts for this recipe. I’ll take a look at it for sure. Thanks!