Vegan Jalapeño Poppers

This baked vegan jalapeño poppers recipe makes the best party appetizer or snack. Homemade jalapeño poppers are made with fresh jalapeños peppers filled with vegan cheese, breaded, and baked until tender on the inside, crispy on the outside.

I remember trying my first Jalapeño Cheese Popper and loving it. That was probably about a month before I went vegan. Since most of these delicacies are made with cheese, it was bye bye little poppers!

It didn’t take long before I started to wonder…could I make jalapeño poppers vegan?

Once I got in the kitchen and experimented I realized I could make homemade vegan jalapeño poppers! It’s not only possible, it’s even easy and delicious.

What You Need

You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe:

• Jalapeños — You’ll need 10 evenly-sized jalapeños for this recipe.
• Vegan Cheese – I like using Daiya Jalapeño Garlic Harvarti cheese, but it’s not always easy to find. You can substitute vegan mozzarella or vegan jack cheese.
• Vegan cream cheese — For storebought, I use Tofutti’s or Daiya vegan cream cheese. You can also use homemade vegan cream cheese.
• Soy milk — I prefer soy milk, but you can substitute any unsweetened non-vanilla plant-based milk.
• Garlic powder — We’ll need just a bit of garlic powder to season the filling.
• Salt — I like sea salt but table salt will work.
• Ground flaxseed — You can buy ground flaxseed at many grocery stores these days, or it can be found at health food stores or online.
• Nutritional yeast flakes — We’ll add a bit of cheesy flavor with nutritional yeast flakes. If you’re new to working with them, here’s more about cooking with nutritional yeast flakes.
• Flour — I used all-purpose flour, but you can sub whole wheat pastry flour or a high-quality gluten-free flour.
• Breadcrumbs — You can make homemade bread crumbs, or substitute panko bread crumbs, or even gluten-free bread crumbs.

How to Make Vegan Jalapeño Poppers

It’s easy to make these stuffed vegan jalapeño poppers. Here’s a synopsis of the steps.

1. Prepare the jalapeños, by cutting them in half and removing the seeds.
2. Stir together the filling ingredients, from the vegan cream cheese to the garlic powder.
3. Stuff each halved jalapeño with the filling mixture. 
4. Create the flax egg mixture by stirring together the ground flaxseed, nutritional yeast flakes, and soy milk. 
5. Pour the flour into one plate and breadcrumbs on another plate.
6. Roll each stuffed pepper in the flour, then the flax egg bowl, followed by the breadcrumbs.
7. Place the breaded poppers on a prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes.
8. Allow them to cool a little and serve warm.

Here are more detailed step-by-step instructions:

Step One: Prepare the Jalapeños

Be very careful when handling raw jalapeños, because the oil from the peppers can transfer to the things you touch, such as your face. I prefer using gloves and then I wash my hands immediately after handling hot peppers.

Cut the jalapeños in half and remove the seeds and innards. Set them aside.

Step Two: Vegan Cheese Filling

Prepare the vegan cheese filling recipe by combining vegan shredded cheese, vegan cream cheese, plant-based milk, garlic powder, and salt in a bowl. Stir until combined.

Use a spoon or spatula to fill each halved jalapeño pepper with the cream cheese mixture.

Step Three: Breading Station

Next, prepare the dipping station. You’ll have a total of 3 bowls. The first bowl will have ground flax seeds, nutritional yeast flakes, and plant-based milk.

The second bowl add the flour. In the third bowl add the bread crumbs.

Here are the steps for breaded jalapeño poppers:

1. Grab a stuffed pepper
2. Dip it in the flour
3. Then, dip it in the ground flaxseed mixture, making sure both sides are covered
4. Dip it in the breadcrumbs
5. Place it on a prepared baking pan.

Wondering how long to bake jalapeño poppers? Place the pan of poppers in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

How to Get Breading to Stick to Poppers

Jalapeños have a slick surface which makes it seem tricky for the batter to stick to them. However, if you follow the steps above, dipping the stuffed pepper in flour, followed by the vegan egg dip, followed by breadcrumbs, it works.

I also recommend placing them immediately on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Then after they’re done baking and you’ve removed them from the oven, be sure and let them sit on the pan for several minutes. This step helps the coating stick to the poppers too.

Air Fryer Jalapeño Poppers

You can make air fryer jalapeño poppers by preheating the air fryer to 375F. Spray the air fryer tray with vegetable cooking spray.

Once the air fryer is up to temperature, place 4 to 5 breaded poppers in the tray of your air fryer, one layer at a time. Air fry at 375F for 10 to 12 minutes, until crispy. Repeat with remaining poppers.

More Vegan Appetizers

These vegan jalapeño poppers are amazing! If you love vegan appetizers, you’re gonna want to give these a try, too:

Vegan Spinach Pinwheels

30 mins total

Vegan Cheese Ball

45 mins total

Cauliflower Wings

50 mins total

Gluten-Free Chex Mix

21 mins total

Make Vegan Keto Jalapeño Poppers

To be honest, you can follow this recipe as is and you’ll have a nice, low-carb vegan recipe. Here are the estimated nutritional values:

Calories per popper: 32 Carbs: 5 g Protein 1g Fiber: 0

To make an even more low carb Jalapeño Poppers recipe, replace the flour and bread crumbs with 1/2 cup of almond flour. So you’ll dip the stuffed jalapeños in the flax seed mixture and then dip it in the almond flour. Here are the estimated nutritional values using almond flour in place of the flour and bread crumbs:

Calories per popper: 26 Carbs: 1g Protein: 1g Fiber: 0

That’s it for these vegan jalapeño poppers. Enjoy!

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Vegan Jalapeño Poppers

These baked vegan jalapeño poppers create a perfect appetizer with a crispy crust, tender peppers, and cheesy filling. Serve this treat for parties or for snacks.

5 from 6 votes

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Course: Snack

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Resting Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Servings: 20

Calories: 32kcal

Author: Marly McMillen

Ingredients

• ▢ 10 jalapeños

Cream Cheese Filling

• ▢ ½ container of vegan cheese, shredded (see note)
• ▢ ½ container vegan cream cheese
• ▢ 1 tablespoon soy milk
• ▢ 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt

Dipping Stations

• ▢ 2 tablespoons ground flax seed
• ▢ 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast flakes
• ▢ ¾ cup soymilk
• ▢ ½ cup flour
• ▢ ½ cup breadcrumbs

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Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. Spray a baking sheet with vegetable cooking spray
• Prepare Jalapeños. Cut the jalapeños in half and remove seeds. I recommend wearing gloves and being very careful about what you touch when handling jalapenos. Their oil is very hot and can spread easily.

For the Cream Cheese Filling

• Place the vegan cream cheese and shredded vegan Daiya cheese, 1 tablespoon of soymilk, garlic powder and sea salt in a bowl and stir together until well combined.
• Stuff each halved jalapeño with the vegan cream cheese mixture. 

For the Dipping Stations

• In a medium bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, nutritional yeast flakes, and 3/4 cup of soy milk and stir. 
• Place the flour on one plate and the breadcrumbs on another plate. Your dipping station should go in this order: Flour plate, Flaxseed/Egg bowl, Breadcrumbs plate.
• Roll each stuffed jalapeño in the flour, followed by a dip in the Flaxseed/Egg bowl (roll it around so all sides are covered), followed by a final dip in the breadcrumbs.
• Place the breaded poppers on the prepared pan. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown on top.
• Allow them to cool a little and serve warm.

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Notes

Make these poppers gluten-free by using gluten-free flour and gluten-free bread crumbs (such as Kellogg’s cornflake crumbles).

I used Tofutti’s vegan cream cheese.

I like using Daiya Jalapeno Havarti cheese, but if you can’t find it, substitute your favorite vegan white cheese, such as mozzarella or jack. 

Calories: 32kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 1g | Sodium: 83mg | Potassium: 42mg | Vitamin A: 95IU | Vitamin C: 8.3mg | Calcium: 20mg | Iron: 0.4mg

The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

Did you make this recipe?

Leave a rating below then tag @namelymarly on Instagram and hashtag it #namelymarly. I love seeing your creations!

This post was originally published in 2019 and was updated to include new photos, new text, and an updated recipe in 2021.

We recently updated the photos for these Vegan Baked Jalapeño Poppers. Here’s a sample of one of the previous photos.

I hope you’ll agree that the new ones are much better. It’s fun to be changing and growing. We hope you love this recipe as much as we do!