chicken breast stuffed with jalapeno poppers and wrapped in bacon

Bacon wrapped chicken with cheese and jalapenos. These really do tick a lot of boxes. The jalapenos are stuffed with cheese and cumin with a hint of lime and garlic then rolled up in a butterflied chicken breast wrapped with bacon. They can be cooked in the barbecue, baked in the oven or if your feeling adventurous then you can chuck them in the smoker and cook them over coals.

ingredients

• 2 large chicken breasts, butterflied or flattened out with a mallet
• 4 slices of bacon
• 4 medium sized jalapenos
• 2 tbsp cream cheese
• 2 tbsp finely grated cheddar cheese
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp fresh lime juice
• kosher salt and coarse black pepper

directions

1. Butterfly the chicken breasts or pound them out with a mallet. At this point you want to check that the chicken breasts will be wide enough to wrap over the stuffed jalapenos. If you don’t think they will then instead of stuffing the jalapenos dice them up and mix in with the other ingredients along with some black pepper creating a paste.
2. Dry brine* the chicken breasts (using 1/4 tsp per breast) and refrigerate for 3 hours. If you don’t have the time then don’t worry too much, sprinkle on the salt and pepper and get stuffing.
3. Cut the tops off the jalapenos, if you’re leaving them whole, remove the seeds and everything else inside. I found using a thin, long knife works well. If you have a small enough melon baller this works well too.
4. Combine the cheeses, cumin, garlic and lime juice in a bowl and then stuff the jalapenos. The cream cheese can be quite hard to work with straight out of the fridge so try to take it out half an hour before you start prepping.
5. If you had time to dry brine the chicken sprinkle with some pepper and depending on the length of the jalapenos place 1 or 2 on the chicken breast and then fold it over. I managed to fit 2 in with the cut ends of the jalapenos facing each other.
6. Wrap the bacon around the chicken breast trying to overlap the bacon. If you’re finding it hard to work with the bacon then use some kitchen string or wooden skewers to hold the bacon in place.

   

7. If you’re using a barbecue, grill over medium indirect heat** with the lid down or bake in the oven on a wire rack at 400 farenheit/205 celsius for 25 to 30 minutes. When the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165f/75c then they are ready to eat.
8. Enjoy your bacon wrapped chicken with jalapeno poppers!

*For a discussion on dry brining you can read Meathead Goldwyn’s article here.

**Indirect heat simply means don’t cook the meat directly over the flame, or coals. If you have a 4 burner barbecue for example, turn on 2 of the burners and cook your meat over the other 2. If you are using charcoal then have the coals on one side of the cooker, meat on the other.