Today is a very special day! It’s my 100th post here on thePortugueseAmericanMom.com! So in honor of that I thought I would highlight one of my very favorite party aps to celebrate! One of my very best girlfriend’s, Lisa, makes these for me whenever there is a party to be had. She came over last Sunday with her husband Carlos and her daughter Kaedence for the football game and we had our selves some good old-fashioned “home-gating”. And I asked, that instead of her making these for me at home, she make them here so I could document the process and share it with you all! And so she did!
They are a super simple and incredibly flavorful and delicious naturally gluten-free appetizer made with just 5 ingredients! One thing that Lisa asked that I stress and I will stress it in the tutorial as well is to please be sure to have surgical gloves before attempting this recipe. You will be working with very hot peppers and will need to protect yourself from the oils in the pepper. Once done and the peppers are in the oven, remove the gloves directly into the trash and thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water to ensure you got it all.
Let me show you how she does it!
Here are all your ingredients! Yep, that’s it, just 4! (plus olive oil for the pan, so five if we are technical)
Mince your onion.
Heat up some olive oil over medium heat.
Sautée the onions.
Split each Italian Sausage so you can remove the casing. Lisa uses hot Italian sausage and we all love them that way… but if you want to reduce the heat due to the already super hot jalapeño peppers, you could use mild Italian sausage here.
Remove the casing.
This is what they look like without the casing.
Add in the sausage.
Lisa asked me for not only a wooden spoon to mix, but also a potato masher to make sure it all gets broken down!
Brown up all of the sausage meat.
Strain out any grease. There wasn’t too much in this batch.
Return the sausage to the skillet and add in a bar of room temperature cream cheese.
Then work the cream cheese into the sausage meat.
Once most of the cream cheese it distributed, you can continue to work it with a wooden spoon.
Once the cream cheese is all distributed well, turn off the burner and let cool for a minute or two.
Preparing the peppers: You should have time to prepare the peppers while the sausage is cooking, but to keep things simple, I am keeping that separate…
Before we get into the pepper part, I need to mention these handy-dandy surgical gloves again… Lisa says, if you don’t have these, don’t make this dish! So, I would gather they are imperative.
Split the peppers all in half.
Place them into a bowl as you go.
You need to remove the seeds and connective tissue from the inside of each pepper. This is Lisa’s technique. Hold firmly and scrape from the top down with your thumb.
Lisa mentioned that the you should look for fatter peppers so they have more stuffing room.
You want to try to get as many of the seeds out to start off with as possible, but you have to go through 18-20 peppers, so you don’t want to spend too much time on it.
Now the peppers need to be washed, but this is more of a technique to get the remaining seeds out.
Fill the bowl with water and let the seeds float around in the water.
Then let them all just flow out in the water. Repeat this process a couple of times until you are satisfied.
Next, take a teaspoon and stuff each.
You want to firmly press in, but build up a little mound at the same time.
This is what you should have.
Line them on a parchment lined rimmed cookie sheet. Pop them in the oven at 350°F for about 30-50 mins or so… but check in on them every 10 mins or so after that first 30 mins. The cooking time will depend on how big your peppers are.
This is what you need to see before you take them out of the oven… They are all a nice golden brown with some crispiness on top.
Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños
Serving size: 1018-20 plump jalapeños, halved and seeded
1 bar cream cheese, room temperature
1 medium onion, minced
1 package hot Italian Sausage, casing removed
1-2 Tbs. olive oil
Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Sautée the onion in olive oil in a skillet set over medium heat. Add in the sausage. With a wooden spoon and a potato masher, work the meat down into the onions and brown. Once browned, drain fat. Return meat to skillet and add in cream cheese. Again, work in the cream cheese using a wooden spoon and potato masher. Once the cream cheese is worked in, turn off heat and set aside to cool for a moment or two.
Stuff the ingredients into the prepared peppers. Line a rimmed cookie sheet or baking dish with parchment paper and line up the stuffed peppers, stuffing facing up. Bake for 30-50 minutes, check on them every 10 minutes after the 30 minutes. They will be done when they are golden brown. Allow to cool on pan for about 10 minutes before moving to a serving tray. Serve warm or room temperature. Enjoy!
*Note – This is a gluten-free recipe, but as always, check your ingredients in the Italian Sausage.
*Note – This is a low-carb recipe