28 Jalapeño Recipes That'll Spice Up Your Cooking Routine

We love them in fruity lemonades and margaritas, for poppers or picked straight from our jalapeño plant and diced up for salsas; jalapeños are the little peppers with big flavor that we find ourselves coming back to time and time again. They heat up our summertime dinners just as easily as they kick up warming comfort foods during the cooler months. There are many techniques for getting maximum flavor out of your peppers, from pickling, frying and roasting to more unique approaches like blitzing with an avocado until creamy or (believe it or not) stuffing them into your pizza dough. Sign us up as interested. But what do you do if you’re worried about the heat level? Don’t give up on jalapeños; you can still cook with them. The trick is to simply cut them and remove the seeds and white membrane prior to using, since that’s where most of the heat comes from. Ready to get cooking? We’ve got lots of recipes you’ll enjoy but it’s hard to beat this simple, no-cook slaw, tossed in lime juice, olive oil and salt. Not only is it delicious — it’s so easy you’ll soon be making it by heart!

You don’t need to wait all day for beer bread to rise to its spicy, cheesy fluffed-up glory — just give it an hour and change. In other words, you can bake off a loaf in the morning and expect to tear off a big palmful (or three) for brunch.

Ice-cold lemonade gets a boost of personality with jalapeño-stuffed ice cubes. Yep, you read that correctly. A little bit of heat is just what this refreshing drink needs!

Kind of like a hot pile of potato fries only, instead of creamy and mellow, jammy and biting. There’s also no need for ketchup here; roasted garlic ranch is the perfect accompaniment.

Homemade pickled jalapeños are a treat to have on hand for chilis, tacos, salads and sandwiches. Pouring hot brine over them instead of boiling them gives them a pleasant fresh crispness instead of the soft texture of the store-bought variety.

And if you’re in the market for a simple, elegant dessert, we’ve got one for you! Soften jalapeños with strawberries in sugar and lemon juice. This process is better known as macerating. You can feel free to go off-script with many types of fruit but mango chunks or sliced peaches are some of our favorites. In improvisation, there are no mistakes!

These sheet pan jalapeño poppers, filled sky-high with sizzled chorizo, smoky gouda, velvety cream cheese and a glug of hot sauce are the quintessential appetizer to serve at dinner parties and low-key game day get-togethers alike.

There’s a time and place for making jalapeño pickle relish. Time: 5 minutes tops. Place: in the kitchen, before you head outside to eat a hotdog, in the sunshine.

This zesty and bright stir-fry recipe is the most delicious way to get your nourishing greens and hearty grains. The one-pot dish (loaded with quinoa, bok choy, lime juice and of course, jalapeño) is the perfect foil to a slab of roast chicken or big planks of crispy tofu but it’s just as, if not more, satiating as a main dish on its own.

You can’t go wrong with a classic. And that’s exactly what Ina’s easy-peasy jalapeño cheddar cornbread is: a dish you’ll make again and again — and serve with everything!

This two-step method for blended, herb-infused watermelon juice will be your new summer drink of choice.

Butter and salt are never a bad idea. But popcorn gets infinitely more interesting (and unbelievably irresistible) when tossed with fried bacon and diced jalapeño.

sum it up, pimento cheese is a blend of cheeses, pickled pimientos, mayonnaise, with the addition of such flavoring agents as ground spices, pickles, or if you’re like Trisha Yearwood, jalapeño. And by stacking juicy beef patties with this creamy cheese and a pineapple, charred to caramelized perfection, this spin on the iconic patty melt becomes a new classic. Eat with potato chips or better yet, jalapeño fries.

This cooking project is one you will be very glad you carved out time for. Chili and cornbread are the ultimate cozy meal combination. The addition of jalapeños in both the soup and batter makes them extra warm and fuzzy, kind of like a heated blanket.

A block of Cheddar and a jalapeño pepper walk into a bagel and together they create the perfect breakfast — and one that will add some major pep to your step!

Once the temperatures reaches into the high 70s, you can bet we’ll be making a big batch of mango salsa to keep in the fridge for those slow days when we want to eat tortilla chips and call it a meal. With this salsa, you’ll feel good getting a dose of fruit and greens.

Jalapeños? At 8 am in the morning? Yep. A tall stack of savory-tug-of-warring-with-sweet pancakes, spiced all up with diced jalapeño pepper, are a meal you can enjoy at anytime of day.

If covering every square inch of jalapeño and chicken with an audacious amount of cheese is wrong, we don’t want to be right.

Jalapeño is exceptional when woven through a creamy sauce. This one gets its texture not from a quart of dairy, but from soaked cashews whizzed together in a blender with ripe avocados and olive oil. The addition of these latter two plant-based fats ensures the spicy cream won’t run the risk of breaking in the mixing process — even if you slightly overdo it, which can happen with egg-and-oil-based emulsifications.

Having an effect resembling that of stew rather than pasta, this winning combination of retro diner flavors is cooked in one pot (that includes the pasta!) and showered with an arguably optional heap of diced pickled jalapeños.

Get your hands on a container, make these pickled carrots and jalapeños — and then pull it out when you need a little bit of acid and crunch in tacos, salads, scrambles and more.

This jalapeño-kissed side dish deserves a spot on your cold-weather dinner table. Trust us!

Glazing with citrus-jalapeño-infused jam presents you with a whole different take on ham — one that features a sweet, crackly shell.

This Thanksgiving, skip the yawn-inducing bowl of cranberry sauce. Feed your family this version instead. The perky addition that makes all the difference? A can of pickled jalapeños.

If you’re looking for an impressive way to upgrade your margaritas, resist the urge to cash out on fancy syrups or garnishes and let the powerful sliced jalapeño do all the talking.

Sure you’ve had pizza, but how many pies have you had that were stuffed to the brim with cheese and jalapeño? We’re willing to bet not too many.

Jalapeño is one of the four punchy vegetables to cut against the one-noted richness coming from a regular old condiment in this chimichurri mayo.