Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Popper Chicken

  4.1 – 17 reviews  • Bacon Recipes
Here are all the good foods — jalapeño poppers, cheese, bacon — rolled up into dinner. Cooking it on the grill gets the bacon crispy while the cheese stays gooey and melted on the inside.
Level: Intermediate
Total: 50 min
Active: 30 min
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  1. 4 large jalapeño peppers (about 3 ounces each)
  2. 4 ounces cream cheese, divided into 4 pieces, chilled
  3. 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  4. Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  5. 4 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 5 ounces each)
  6. 4 thin slices Colby Jack cheese
  7. 20 slices bacon (about 1 1/2 pounds)

Instructions

  1. Wear gloves to protect your hands and use a small paring knife to cut the stem-end off the jalapeño; you should see the white ribs attached to the walls of the jalapeño. Use the paring knife to remove the ribs from the walls. Make a cut down the length of the jalapeño from the top to the tip. Carefully, without breaking the jalapeño in half, scrape out the ribs and seeds. Transfer to a microwave-safe bowl, add 3 tablespoons water, cover tightly with plastic wrap and microwave on high power until the jalapeños turn olive green and are lightly softened but are still firm and hold their shape, 2 to 3 minutes. Let cool.
  2. Stuff each cooled jalapeño with a piece of cream cheese; squeeze the walls around the cream cheese to force out any air pockets and to seal the jalapeño walls together. 
  3. Mix together the cumin, 1 tablespoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl. Pound the chicken lengthwise down the breast to make a rectangular 1/4-inch-thick cutlet. Sprinkle with a quarter of the seasoned salt. Repeat with the remaining chicken and seasoned salt. 
  4. With one of the narrow ends of the chicken facing you, lay a piece of Colby Jack cheese at the bottom of the cutlet. Place 1 stuffed jalapeño crosswise on top of the cheese about 2 inches from the bottom. Tightly roll up the chicken and the cheese around the jalapeño, folding in the sides as you roll. Repeat with the remaining chicken and jalapeños. 
  5. Lay 5 strips of bacon on a clean work surface so that the strips are slightly overlapping (about 1/4-inch) and are wide enough to completely cover a chicken roll. Place 1 chicken roll at the bottom of the bacon blanket. Wrap the bacon tightly over the chicken roll. Repeat with the remaining bacon and chicken rolls. 
  6. Prepare a grill for indirect grilling and heat to medium-high heat. 
  7. Place the chicken rolls, bacon seam-side down, on the cooler side of the grill. Cover and cook until the bacon is beginning to brown and the cheese is beginning to melt and ooze from the sides, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the chicken rolls to the hot side of the grill and cook until lightly charred, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Let cool 10 minutes before serving. 

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 1 of 4 servings
Calories 1059
Total Fat 86 g
Saturated Fat 32 g
Carbohydrates 10 g
Dietary Fiber 3 g
Sugar 6 g
Protein 59 g
Cholesterol 260 mg
Sodium 1381 mg

Reviews

John Reid
If I bake this what temperature and for how long
Will I made it was very good. SO HERE IS what I did
400-25 minutes thenturnthe heat up 450 back for another 10 minutes and it was good this I make again.
Veronica Shah
I love this recipe!! I don’t like chicken but cooked like this I could eat it every day!! I don’t grill it I bake it at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until the juices run clear!
Scott Randolph
Sinfully good!  Cooking the bacon a bit before wrapping does help attain the crispness.  
Lisa Taylor
This is so good! My husband really liked it as well. I used precooked bacon and baked them for 35 minutes at 375. Turned out perfect!
Raymond Guzman
This was really good! I see a lot of negative reviews on this recipe and I want to state that I had no problems at all with carrying out these instructions. A little situational awareness is needed. I used a charcoal grill and built a fire on one side and cooked on the other (until the end). Cooking times vary because its totally dependent on the fire you build. My cook time (judged by the bacon looking good, and cheese oozing out) was about 20-25 minutes. My indirect cooking heat left a little to be desired so most of the bacon cooking was done directly over the coals.
Mrs. Kristen Hurst DVM
We wanted this one to be good! It looks amazing.
But it did not turn out well.

The cook time was a lot longer than expected.

The bacon would not crisp up on the grill at all. And in the length of time it took to try to crisp up the bacon the chicken was awkwardly overcooked but still kind of moist from all the bacon grease and cream cheese insides. It gave the chicken a very weird texture.

I would try this again but maybe with no bacon or all in the oven and not on the grill.

Candice Cochran
I made this tonight.  We enjoyed it, but I would like to suggest a few changes/tweaks to this recipe.  First, I would used 50% less cumin and about 25% less salt.  Second, if you’re not getting ‘crispy’ bacon you’re probably using thick cut.  In order to get crispy bacon, use the cheap (thin) stuff.
Dr. Melinda Meyers DVM
Use prosciutto instead of bacon!! Turns out great!!
Matthew Anderson
I did not make this but curious if it can be made in the oven?  If so, on what temperature and for how long?
Steven Gregory
This dish turned out much better than I had expected it to, but I did make a couple of changes. I used half the amount of salt to season the chicken due to the cheese and bacon adding salt, and I also baked for about 45 minutes instead of grilling because based on other reviews people had trouble with crisping the bacon and the chicken drying out. Overall it tasted excellent and was very easy to make! 

 

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