Jalapeño Popper Mac & Cheese Bites

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We are fast approaching a foodie trifecta— Super Bowl, Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day will all happen in the same week this year, and I’m in a bit of a tizzy about it. My schedule has been so busy lately that I’m struggling to put up even one post a week, let alone three, and with delicious recipes standing by for all of these occasions, I’m feeling the pressure. 

So I’m getting a jump on things with this recipe for mac and cheese bites, which will be every bit as enjoyable for this weekend’s conference championships as it will for the big game on Feb. 11. Heck, you might enjoy them so much, you’ll make them twice!

One of my great joys for Comfort du Jour is twisting favorite foods together, and these little handheld bites might be one of my tastiest mashups ever. My husband and I love the spicy, cheesy bite of jalapeño popper appetizers, and who doesn’t love mac and cheese? This was a no brainer. And though my initial plan was to simply make mac and cheese with the popper flavors, I pivoted to my muffin tin to keep the snack in handheld form. For any game day watch party, the less you have to mess with utensils, the better.

This recipe begins with crisped up bacon, which is reserved for the top. I drained off the excess bacon grease and then tossed panko crumbs into the skillet to soak up the smoky bacon flavor. This would be a topper for my mac and cheese bites, because every game day snack is better with a little crunch.

Of course there’s a lot of fat in these. It’s a game day snack!

The drained-off bacon grease becomes the backdrop of the jalapeño-studded cheese sauce for the mac and cheese. I followed my usual formula for the sauce: first the roux, then milk for the base, followed by American cheese and shredded cheese (I opted for pepper jack). More fresh jalapeños went into the sauce, and then the cooked elbows.

Of course, this would also be delish baked in a casserole.

To capture all the components of poppers, I buried a nugget of cream cheese inside layers of the mac and cheese, then topped the “muffin” bites with the crispy bacon, more shredded cheddar and those bacon-scented panko crumbs. The recipe can be made ahead to this point and refrigerated, then baked on game day right before kickoff, but I would recommend adding the toppings just before baking so the bacon and crumbs remain crispy.

Let them cool a few minutes, so the cheese firms up for easy, non-messy removal.

Half an hour at 350° F, and these are ready for the big game or any other snacking occasion coming our way. Next up, Mardi Gras! ⚜️

Jalepeño Popper Mac & Cheese Bites

  • Servings: 12 muffin sized bites
  • Difficulty: Average
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What better time than Super Bowl for a snack that marries the spicy flavors of a favorite appetizer and the down home comfort of mac and cheese?


Ingredients

  • 4 thin slices uncured smoked bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1/2 cup panko crumbs
  • 1/2 sweet or yellow onion, rough chopped
  • 3 jalapeno peppers, divided (dice one, slice the other two)
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 5 oz. American cheese, cubed (I usually purchase a chunk from the supermarket deli)
  • 4 oz. pepper jack or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (fresh is better than the pre-shredded stuff in a bag)
  • 1/2 lb. cooked elbow macaroni
  • 2 oz. cream cheese, divided among cups
  • 2 oz. sharp cheddar, shredded and divided among cups

Note: This game day snack can be made in advance and refrigerated overnight. For best results, add bacon pieces and panko just before baking. Oven time may be extended if the bites are baked cold from the fridge.

Directions

  1. Cook bacon pieces in a cast iron skillet until lightly crispy; reserve 3 tablespoons of bacon fat for making the cheese sauce.
  2. Add the panko crumbs to the warm skillet and toss to soak up the residual bacon grease. Set the crumbs aside for topping the mac and cheese bites.
  3. Heat the reserved bacon fat over medium heat in a good sized pot. Add the onions and diced jalapeño and season with salt and pepper. Sauté the vegetables until softened.
  4. Sprinkle in flour and cook a few minutes until the mixture is bubbly and begins to brown. Add milk all at once and cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens into a sauce. Add American cheese cubes and then pepper jack shreds, melting completely after each addition.
  5. Add the cooked elbow macaroni and remaining jalapeño slices and stir to coat completely. Allow this to cool several minutes.
  6. Spray the cups of a 12-cup muffin tin with oil to prevent sticking. Divide half of the mac and cheese among the cups, then place a bit of cream cheese in the center of each cup and cover with the rest of the mac and cheese. Divide the bacon pieces over the top of the cups, and then top each with the shredded cheddar and bacon-moistened panko crumbs.
  7. Bake at 350° F for about 30 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and crumbs are crispy.
  8. Let the mac and cheese bites cool a few minutes to firm up the cheese, then run a knife around the outside of each muffin cup to release the bites from the pan. Transfer to a serving dish and enjoy watching them fly off the plate.

The Big Kahuna

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Retailers thrive on the impulse purchase. Heck, whole displays are set up with the purpose of getting folks to buy things they hadn’t had on their shopping list. Come to think of it, who even still uses a shopping list? My rule as I approach 64 is this: three items or less commit to memory, four or more write on the iPhone notes app, 10 or more make a printout. But I digress.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, while Terrie was doing some pre-cooking, pre-prep for the amazing strawberry daiquiri cake to come the next day, she realized she really didn’t have enough granulated sugar. I was dispatched to the local Food Lion—a hop, skip and jump from our house—to fetch some, and, because Terrie also had a fresh loaf of bread in the works, some of this new cracked pepper turkey we’ve discovered at “The Lion,” a market we’ve been hearing good things about. Which is an inside joke about something my late mother used to say that is a much longer story. Oops, I digress again.

Now, getting a bag of sugar for Terrie isn’t easy. It’s not going to be Domino’s or Dixie Crystals or even the Food Lion brand, no matter how many good things we’ve been hearing. Got to be fair trade and organic, third-party labels and all. I eventually found a container of her preferred sugar squirreled away on the top shelf, hidden from the big 5-pound bags. As for the cold cuts, the man at the deli found the cracked pepper turkey. He couldn’t find the cracked pepper ham I wanted, so I switched gears after seeing a nice looking hunk of roast beef in the drawer. Now, this was, no doubt, a nitrite-injected slab of roast beef, but every once in a while, I try to sneak one past the queen of Comfort du Jour. More important, in the part of the deli where they pre-package their own stuff, I saw some sliced American cheese, another product we rarely get unless we are planning some melty cheese thing, say, queso fundido.

If you’d been watching me that afternoon as I waited for the deli dude to figure out how to bag the roast beef (it truly took him an inordinate amount of time to do this seemingly simple task), you might have seen an old-school incandescent light bulb (40 watts, it was only a dim bulb idea, not one of those brilliant, three-way 150-watters) going off over my head.

Terrie is always trying to reproduce some of the favorite things we discover in restaurants. And, of course, her versions inevitably turn out way better than the original. I’m talking spinach Maria from Ke’e Grille, I’m talking PF Chang-style lettuce wraps, I’m talking hot Italian sausage and cherry pepper pizza from Modern Apizza (OK, this one isn’t way better, but it’s just as good!).

So what did I want to do for my first “copycat” meal to be posted on Terrie’s blog? Why, the Big Kahuna from Jersey Mike’s. Because, well, why not? Terrie made a deep-dish pizza inspired by the Big Kahuna, but never the sandwich itself. The Big Kahuna has long been one of our two or three “go to” options when we just can’t figure out or don’t have time to make dinner. It’s unusual because we really aren’t fast-food people. But something about the combination of Philly cheesesteak topped with mushrooms, onions, peppers and jalapenos (and we usually ask for extra jalapenos) hits us both just right. That afternoon in Food Lion, I could envision the sandwich to come. I didn’t get the chance right away and I didn’t tell Terrie about my semi-brilliant idea. But a few days later, when I called to check in on my ride home, I pounced when there was not a firm dinner plan. “I’ll take care of it. I just have to pick one thing up from the Lion.”

It all came together very quickly. And you know what? It’s better than Jersey Mike’s. If I do say so myself.

Behold the Big Kahuna!

Now that’s a spicy bite!

I started by sautéing onions and bells peppers, just til they were soft, and then I pushed them aside and added mushrooms to the skillet. When they started to brown, I pushed the mixture aside again and tossed the hot peppers in to heat them through.

While that was working, I spread a thin layer of mayo on each cut side of the bread and laid them on our stove-top griddle. When the inside was nicely browned, I flipped it onto the back side to give it some crisp.

The roast beef slices didn’t take long to brown and heat through. I arranged them in a long, narrow oval to match the bread shape, then laid the American cheese in strips across the top to melt it.

I used a long spatula to move the roast beef and cheese together onto one half of the bread, then laid the  vegetables on the other half so they were fairly evenly dispersed, then cut that baby in half and called Terrie to the table.

The Big Kahuna

  • Servings: 1 giant sandwich
  • Difficulty: Average
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My jalapeño-loving husband has taken over the kitchen, recreating one of our favorite take-out foods at home! His version of this Jersey Mike's standard was fresher, hotter and better than the ones we can buy!


Ingredients

  • 1/2 medium onion, sliced
  • 4-5 good size mushrooms, washed and sliced
  • 1/2 bell pepper, sliced into strips (I used green, but red works, too)
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup of jalapeño or cherry peppers (or if you like it spicy, as we do, both)
  • 4 slices white American cheese
  • 1/2 pound of sliced deli roast beef, cut into smaller pieces
  • 1 French bread loaf (I used something called a “twin French loaf bread,” which was narrower than typical loaf and more like Jersey Mike’s style), sliced in half but not all the way through
  • Mayonnaise
  • Salt and pepper
  • Olive oil



Directions

  1. Heat a medium skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Sauté onions and pepper until translucent. Push aside and add mushrooms until they begin to brown. Add jalapeños/cherry peppers and cook until all are softened and heated through. Set aside.
  2. Slice the bread in half but not all the way through. Spread a thin layer of mayo on each half of the bread and lay in another skillet or stovetop griddle if you have one, lay the bread flat until it is nicely browned, then flip over to lightly crisp the top. Set aside.
  3. Brown the roast beef slices (it won’t take long), then arrange them in a long, narrow oval to match the bread shape. Lay the American cheese in strips across the top. Cook until the cheese begins to melt.
  4. With the bread on a flat surface, use a wide spatula to lay half of the roast beef onto the bread, then fetch the other half and do it again. Add your vegetables on the other side so they are fairly evenly dispersed, then do your best to hold the sandwich together and cut in half.

Les’s Nachos for Dinner

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One of the things I like about my marriage is how Terrie and I respect each other’s kitchen capabilities. I certainly know and trust in her judgment, but she also respects the way I can surprise her once in a while with a “guy” food. Like, say, nachos.

As with many guys, I like nachos from days in the sports bars. Great eats while grabbing a beer and watching a game. Somewhere along in my adulting—and I believe it began with thinking of new uses for leftover chili, but I can’t say for sure—I decided I could do nachos every bit as good as a sports bar, whose chips were typically stale and plentiful, while toppings were bland and sparse.

Over the years, I refined my approach to use a block of cheddar or Monterey jack or something similar (a suggestion from Terrie, who, as regular readers of this blog know, abhors shredded cheese in a bag), a fun protein and any of a number of complementary items before the oven or after: fire-roasted corn, onions, black beans, refried beans, pickled jalapenos (or fresh if you slice them thinly), scallions, avocados, guacamole, sour cream, salsa.

Lots of flavor and texture here.

The nachos I’m sharing here feature Terrie’s homemade chorizo, which I fried in a cast-iron pan along with some diced onions and then set aside. We prepped (Terrie contributed here, serving as my sous chef, a definite change of pace for us!) by chopping up some pickled jalapeno peppers (dry them first), avocado and scallions, while I shredded a little better than a cup combined of sharp cheddar and habanero cheddar. The fun part is putting this bad boy together. OK, I kid you all. It’s incredibly simple.

The homemade sausage is fairly lean, so I drizzled a little oil into the pan as it cooked. Terrie got the fresh toppings ready for me.

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Put a piece of parchment over a cookie sheet and then lay your favorite tortilla chips on to cover the surface. We used a blue corn chip put out by a company called Xochitl. They were very good, but if you can find a local restaurant with an awesome, homemade fresh chip, so much the better. A moment here to lament the loss of Tijuana Flats, a small national chain that was our “go-to” place for chips, which were freshly made, thin and perfectly seasoned. We used to buy bags of them for just $1.25 to complement any Southwestern or Mexican dish we made; these chips were the flagship of our annual Super Bowl party. Alas, the local restaurant closed at the start of the pandemic and we still miss it. The Xochitl brand is as close as we’ve found.

Be sure your toppings have good coverage over the layer of chips, then bury it in cheese.

Anyway, with your chips nicely arranged (you shouldn’t see any big parchment peeking through), top first with your protein, which today was the chorizo-onion mix. I then sprinkled on a generous amount of chopped jalapenos and fire-roasted corn, and then the cheese. Off to the oven it went for 10 minutes. The nachos are done when the cheese is nice and melted. A side note here: We had believed a pre-made queso would work great rather than grated cheese, but it doesn’t. The heat of the oven breaks up the queso, and it runs underneath the chips, which makes them soggy. Freshly grated cheese is the way to go.

Fresh toppings, such as scallions and avocados, are added just before serving.

I topped this batch of nachos with scallions and diced avocado, and we served salsa and sour cream on the table. Probably a dozen or more years ago, I found this very wide spatula for handling fish and, wouldn’t you know, it works great for portioning out a generous mound of hot nachos.

Just call me Nacho Daddy!

Les's Nachos for Dinner

  • Servings: About 4
  • Difficulty: Easy
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Somewhere along in my adulting, I decided I could do nachos every bit as good as a sports bar. Here is my latest iteration of this 'guy food' served up as a meal at home.


Ingredients

  • About 1/2 pound bulk chorizo sausage (or other protein)
  • 1/2 medium sweet or yellow onion, chopped
  • Salt and pepper as needed (use your judgment, based on the flavor of your protein)
  • Enough corn tortilla chips to evenly cover a baking pan (about 1/2 standard bag)
  • 1/4 cup sliced pickled jalapenos, blotted on paper towels
  • 1/2 cup fire-roasted corn kernels (frozen is fine)
  • 1 cup grated cheddar cheese (or other variety, such as Monterey Jack or colby; preferably not pre-shredded from a bag)
  • 2 scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced
  • 1/2 large avocado, cubed
  • Sour cream and salsa, for serving

Feel free to substitute any favorite protein you have on hand. I’ve used cut-up chicken, ground turkey, ground beef and even black beans; it all works! If your chosen protein is unseasoned, consider adding some chili powder or other Southwest seasoning to the meat as it cooks. If you prefer less heat, swap in bell pepper for the jalapenos and saute them with the meat and onions.

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F, with rack in center position. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat and cook sausage with onions until the meat is browned and onions are softened.
  3. Arrange tortilla chips over parchment paper. It’s OK for the chips to overlap, but aim for a single layer so that each chip gets some toppings. Scatter the cooked sausage-onion mixture evenly over the chips, followed by the jalapenos, roasted corn and grated cheese.
  4. Bake at 350 F for about 10 minutes, until cheese is melted all over. Immediately top nachos with scallions and avocado. Serve with sour cream and salsa at the table.

Les’s Atomic Buffalo Turds

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The name alone demanded that I make this appetizer when I ran across the recipe sometime while preparing for my 2015 Super Bowl party. The fact that it was a heat-fueled bite made it even better. Not only did it pair well with my favorite chili, but it also helped get the guests to leave on time.

For some reason, I didn’t make these spicy bites for the 2020 Super Bowl bash at our house (the last time we actually had people over). And last year, when it was just me and Terrie for the Pandemic Bowl, no turds.

With this year’s Super Bowl coming up, Terrie asked me to make these and share the recipe, so here goes. I wish I could credit a specific source for these, but I cannot remember where I found the recipe. It’s just an awfully good one, and very conducive to substitutions of spices and topping sauce. So many different things can work. The key is the mix of sweet to offset the intense heat. The original recipe suggested cooking these on an outdoor smoker, but this adaptation is adjusted for baking in a home oven.

Behold, atomic buffalo turds!

My 2016 batch, enough for a houseful of hungry Super Bowl guests.

Ingredients (makes 12 pieces)

6 medium size jalapeno peppers, halved and trimmed*

12 li’l smoky sausages*

3/4 brick of cream cheese

1¼ tsp. smoked paprika*

3/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (or less, if you’re scared)

6 slices of bacon, cut in half crosswise*

12 toothpicks

2 Tbsp. sweet rub seasoning*

Sweet finishing sauce*

Notes

  • Scoop out the innards of the jalapenos, removing most of the membrane and the seeds. However, if you really want heat, feel free to leave some of that membrane intact.
  • There are different brands of li’l smokies. Ideally, we’d love to find some without nitrites, but if they are made, we can’t find them. You can, however, probably substitute other kinds of normal size sausage and simply cut them down to the bite-size smoky portion.
  • There are many different types of paprika. For this batch, we used a bourbon smoked paprika we’d found online at Bourbon Barrel Foods.
  • I usually wrap the bacon raw around the jalapenos, but there is something to be said for lightly starting to cook the bacon in a skillet to render some of the fat and help it be more crispy later. But don’t cook it too long, or it will either burn or crack and fall off in the oven. Thin slices of bacon work better than thick.
  • The sweet rub seasoning can be anything you find that suits the bill; it is used to offset the heat. You can also make some your own, as we did in this case, using 3 parts of brown sugar to one part of Flatiron Pepper Co.’s dark and smoky BBQ rub. Flatiron is a very good specialty pepper company and we have enjoyed many of their products, which tend to bring the heat!
  • The finishing sauce is usually a sweet/tart, often fruit-flavored BBQ-oriented sauce. It goes on after the turds have cooked and provide a beautiful cooling note. Or, if you’re like us, you can look for a fruit-flavored-but-still-has-a-kick sauce. One year, I used a cherry-ancho BBQ sauce. For this batch, we had a raspberry-habanero sauce I’d bought from a friend who sells Pampered Chef products.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300° F.

The first thing to do is prep the jalapenos, which involves cutting off the stems, splitting them lengthwise and then taking out the seeds and membrane. The more of either you leave inside, the more the heat your turds will pack. Wash your hands thoroughly (unless you have kitchen gloves to work with, which I don’t) when you’re done. And don’t even think of getting that itch near your eye, even after you’ve washed your hands. Trust me. Been there, done that.

The seeds and membranes of the jalapenos are extra hot; remove them if you must.
If your peppers are very large, you may want to whip up a little extra cream cheese filling.
The paprika and cayenne turn the cream cheese a burnt orange color.

Prepare the cream cheese mix by adding the paprika and cayenne. The cream cheese will turn orange. Don’t be alarmed. It helps, by the way, to let the cream cheese get room temp for easier mixing. Scoop the cream cheese to fill the half jalapenos and be relatively generous. Then place one smoky right on top of the cream cheese, lining up your jalapenos on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

This brand is more bland than others I have tried, almost like small frankfurters.
Divide the cream cheese mixture among the pepper halves, and top each with a smoky.
Wrap a half-slice of bacon around each turd and secure it through the smoky with a toothpick.

Take one of the half slices of bacon and wrap around the jalapeno, covering the smoky and cream cheese mix and securing with a toothpick on top through the bacon. Push down through the smoky and keep going until you feel resistance from the bottom of the jalapeno. Do not pierce the jalapeno if you can avoid it, as that will cause the cream cheese mix to seep out.

Sprinkle some of the sweet bbq rub over the turds and pop them into the oven.
They will emerge smoky, spicy and delicious.
Finally, glaze them with your sweet finishing sauce and watch them disappear.

Sprinkle a generous portion of whatever your sweet rub mix of choice is on each smoky and place the cookie sheet in the oven. Allow about 90 minutes. The long, slow baking time simulates the process of smoking them.

When the bacon looks done, remove the turds and brush or drip your finishing sauce on top of the turds. Then, enjoy the burn!

Atomic Buffalo TurdsPrint it!
Good to the last scorching bite.