Snacks · Wings & party bites

Jalapeño poppers

Name: Jalapeño poppers
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 12 jalapeños jalapeño, halved, seeded; 1 block cream cheese, softened; 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded; 4 slices bacon, crisped, crumbled; 3/4 tsp garlic powder; 2 green onion, sliced; 1/3 cup breadcrumbs; 1 tbsp butter, melted

The appetizer that never survives the first quarter: jalapeño halves packed with bacon-cheddar cream cheese under a crisp crumb, baked not fried.

Time: 40 min (20 prep + 20 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 285 kcal
Protein: 10 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

12 jalapeños jalapeño, halved, seeded300 g
1 block cream cheese, softened225 g
3/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded80 g
4 slices bacon, crisped, crumbled60 g
3/4 tsp garlic powder2 g
2 green onion, sliced15 g
1/3 cup breadcrumbs30 g
1 tbsp butter, melted15 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Halve and seed the jalapeños — gloves, or your eyes will collect the debt hours later.
Beat the cream cheese with the cheddar, bacon, garlic powder and scallions; fill the halves level.
Toss the crumbs in the melted butter and press onto each.
Bake at 200°C for 18–20 minutes until the peppers slump and the crumbs brown. Five minutes' rest saves six mouths.

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

15% of kcal

58% water

4 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1708 kcal goes into the pot, 727 g of ingredients comes out as ~620 g of food → 275 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 275
Protein: (15%); 10 g
Fat: (73%); 22 g
Carbohydrates: (12%); 9 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 447 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.