Smoked Chorizo, Goat Cheese & Fontina Jalapeño Poppers

Garden jalapeños stuffed with Mexican chorizo, goat cheese, Fontina, roasted garlic, and fresh jalapeño, then finished with a little wood smoke.

There comes a point every year when the jalapeños in the garden seem to go from a few peppers ready to pick to what in the world am I going to do with all of these?

That means it’s popper time.

I’ve made plenty of jalapeño poppers over the years, but my version has wandered pretty far from the familiar cream-cheese-and-bacon formula. Nothing wrong with those, but when I’ve got fresh peppers coming out of the garden, I want the jalapeño to remain part of the flavor rather than simply being a container for cream cheese.

So these get stuffed with Mexican chorizo, goat cheese, Fontina, roasted garlic, and finely diced fresh jalapeño, then smoked upright on the grill until the peppers soften, the cheese melts, and everything picks up just enough wood smoke.

The result is rich without being ridiculously heavy, spicy without blowing your head off, and smoky enough that you know they came off the grill.

And yes, there’s a gadget involved.

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One of Those Kitchen Gadgets That Actually Works

I’ve accumulated enough kitchen equipment over the years to be suspicious of anything designed to perform one very specific job.

But every once in a while, one earns its spot in the drawer.

The little serrated jalapeño corer I use slides down inside the pepper and removes the seeds and most of the white ribs and membrane without having to split the jalapeño in half. Cut off the stem end, work the corer down through the center, give it a twist, and you’re left with a hollow pepper that’s ready to stuff.

That’s particularly useful for these because I cook the peppers standing upright in a stainless jalapeño rack.

The rack keeps the filling where it belongs while the cheese melts instead of escaping through the grill grates.

There is one casualty in the process, though.

The tops we cut from the peppers really aren’t worth trying to save. Once the stem is removed, most of what remains is white pith and membrane—the part of the pepper where much of the capsaicin is concentrated.

So rather than trying to salvage a tablespoon of usable flesh from a pile of pepper tops, I simply sacrifice one or two additional jalapeños and finely dice them for the filling.

And if the garden has given me a jalapeño that has ripened all the way to red, even better.

A ripe red jalapeño still gives us that unmistakable fresh jalapeño flavor, but it also brings a little sweetness and, more importantly, some beautiful color. Those tiny pieces of red pepper scattered through the white goat cheese and melted Fontina make the filling look every bit as good as it tastes.

Why This Filling Works

Mexican chorizo does most of the heavy lifting.

It brings chile, garlic, spice, and enough pork fat to make the filling rich without needing bacon wrapped around the outside.

Goat cheese gives us some acidity and tang—something I think a lot of jalapeño poppers are missing. Fontina supplies the creamy melt and those wonderful little browned spots across the tops.

Then there’s the roasted garlic.

Instead of the sharper bite you’d get from raw garlic, roasting turns it mellow, sweet, and almost buttery. Mashed into the goat cheese, it becomes part of the background rather than shouting from the filling.

Finally, that finely chopped fresh jalapeño puts some bright pepper flavor back inside the popper. Since we’ve removed most of the ribs and seeds from the peppers themselves, the diced jalapeño keeps the filling from becoming nothing but cheese and sausage.

Every bite still tastes like jalapeño.

Choosing the Smoke

You don’t need a lot of smoke here.

These aren’t ribs or a pork shoulder that will sit in a smoker for hours. The poppers are only on the grill long enough to soften the peppers and melt the filling, so the wood should add another layer of flavor rather than dominate everything else.

Applewood is probably my favorite for these. It’s mild and slightly sweet, and it works particularly well with both pork and peppers.

Hickory gives you a little more traditional barbecue character and stands up beautifully to the chorizo.

And mesquite absolutely works, especially with Mexican chorizo and jalapeños, but it is considerably more assertive. I’d use a little less of it. Mesquite can go from pleasantly smoky to all I taste is smoke pretty quickly.

Whatever you choose, think of the smoke the same way you would any other seasoning.

Enough to notice it. Not enough to bury everything underneath it.