Shrimp Stuffed Jalapeños Wrapped in Bacon

I was tooling around Trader Joe’s when I saw these frozen tiger shrimp and inspiration struck! I had some fancy Woodbury Farms bacon at home as well as some jalapeños. I was going to take that shrimp and make something delicious!

So, I knew from personal experience that these Jalapeños are super spicy so I wanted to neutralize some of the spice.

I do this with a mix of vinegar and water and letting them soak. I’ve read that you can use lemon-lime soda (like Sprite) but have never tried that. To get started you need to halve and remove the pith from your peppers.

Removing the pith is much easier if you use a spoon. It’s dull it hurts more to quote Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. All joking aside the pith is where the spice hides so remove it.

Next place them in a bowl and let them soak for about an hour in a 1:3 vinegar to water mix. The longer they soak the less spicy they will become.

Don’t worry about getting all the seeds off before you soaking. They will rinse off easily at the end.

Take advantage of that soaking time by letting your cream cheese soften, your bacon come to room temperature and your shrimp defrost. Once your cream cheese is soft you can go ahead and make your filling mix.

I used chopped parsley, fine diced shallot and red bell pepper as well as some minced garlic, salt and pepper.

I gave it a really good stir and then once everything was at room temp I got myself all set up to prep my peppers.

I arranged my peppers so they were reasonably back together, or at least so that the sizes matched up and filled them with the cream cheese.

Next I sandwiched a shrimp that best matched the jalapeño in size and shape in between the two halves. It was so cute all snuggled up in there.

Next it’s time to wrap your bacon around your peppers. In retrospect I would have used toothpicks to hold this all together. Live and learn.

Put in a cold oven and set to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. They will cook in about 30-40 minutes. Just remember that the cheese inside will be like molten lava so wait a few minutes before you chomp down.

Ingredients (makes 6):

1. 6 large jalapeños
2. 6 tiger shrimp
3. 6 slices of thick cut bacon

Filling ingredients:

1. 4 oz of cream cheese
2. 1 Tbsp of fine diced shallots
3. 1 Tbsp of fine diced bell pepper
4. 1 Tbsp fine chopped parlsey
5. 1 Tbsp minced garlic
6. 1 Tsp salt
7. 1 Tsp pepper

Recipe:

1. Prep your jalapeños by slicing in half and removing pith. Soak in a 1:3 mix of vinegar to water and leave for 1-2 hours.
2. Mix your filling.
3. Stuff each half with cream cheese.
4. Place shrimp inside of two halves of jalapeño.
5. Place in cold oven and set to 400. Start checking after twenty minutes. Usually takes 30-40 minutes to cook but you don’t want to let them burn.