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.
Why This Recipe is a Winner
- Fresh jalapeños have the stems and seeds removed, keeping all the jalapeño flavor without the heat from this spicy plant
- Vegan cream cheese serves as the foundation for the creamy filling
- Breading the poppers by dipping them a flax egg mixture helps the breading stick to the poppers, creating the best crispy topping!
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.
- Prepare the jalapeños, by cutting them in half and removing the seeds.
- Stir together the filling ingredients, from the vegan cream cheese to the garlic powder.
- Stuff each halved jalapeño with the filling mixture.
- Create the flax egg mixture by stirring together the ground flaxseed, nutritional yeast flakes, and soy milk.
- Pour the flour into one plate and breadcrumbs on another plate.
- Roll each stuffed pepper in the flour, then the flax egg bowl, followed by the breadcrumbs.
- Place the breaded poppers on a prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes.
- 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:
- Grab a stuffed pepper
- Dip it in the flour
- Then, dip it in the ground flaxseed mixture, making sure both sides are covered
- Dip it in the breadcrumbs
- 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.
Marly’s Tips
- Be careful when chopping jalapeños. I recommend using gloves when handling raw jalapeño peppers. These tips on cooking with hot peppers are good to follow.
- Use gluten-free flour and bread crumbs to make this a recipe for gluten-free jalapeño poppers.
- Make sure to dip the stuffed peppers in the order specified above to get some nice and crispy baked 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:
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
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
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
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.
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!
YES. I have wanted poppers for weeks now. So yum.
Thanks, Sarah! So glad you love these jalapeño poppers too!
I love your vegan twist on these. Jalapeno poppers are always a hit with my family!
Right! I feel the same way!
Oh these look amazing, Marly!!!!
Thanks, Julie! I love jalapeños anyway so baking them in this poppers recipe is a real bonus!
Yum! I am generally not a spicy food person, but for some reason I loveee jalapeno poppers! Can’t wait to try these.
With the seeds removed, the spice is definitely very low key.
I would like to bring in the new year with these delicious poppers. They look addictively delicious.
Happy New Year, Marly!!
Happy New Year to you too, sweet Jennifer!
I love jalapeño poppers — those look so delicious!
Oh my GOODNess Marly! Just wow.
Jalapeno poppers are pretty much my husband’s favorite food ever. But I never make them because they are SO unhealthy. So yay for your vegan version! I love this!
Ohhhhhh…those look beaUUUUUtiful! Yum!
These jalapeno poppers look perfect for Super Bowl Sunday! Gonna’ pin this one!
How did you know I was craving something both spicy and creamy? These look so delicious. Thank you for sharing. 2013 is off to a delicious start. I hope you have a relaxing and joyful weekend, my friend!
Only 10 jalapeno’s for this recipe? I would definitely have to use at least 50…and all for me! lol
Awesome recipe…thanks for sharing! 🙂
The good news is my family doesn’t get into spicy food like me so I got to eat all of these myself. I didn’t think they were overly spicy, but just the word jalapeño was enough to keep them at bay!
OMG. Poppers were my favorite late night (or any time really) snack in my pre-vegan days. The jalapeno garlic havarti is the only vegan cheese that I like! This is the best recipe EVER!
Viva la poppers!
I can’t stop thinking about these, they look so so good!
Is this the equivalent of a food bomb? When you can’t get it out of your head? Well, I think that means you must make them soon. But I have to warn you, even after you make them…it’s still possible to want more. *sigh*
Hey! Tried the recepie with a few variations…no havarti, added cilantro to the cream cheese and blanched the jalapenos first…turned out great! The batter works well!
I love improvising with a recipe! Your changes here sound great – I might have to try this version myself!
Hi,
I am from India and love medium spicy food. A month ago I saw friend eating jalapeno poppers at a movie theater and knew that was complete no no for me. I am following a vegan diet to large extent.
But now I found your recipe. It’s way less in calories compared to what is sold outside.
Thanks a lot
We have a similar recipe, these are very good.
Thanks, Amy! I love Jalapeño Poppers. These vegans ones are sooo good!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! My friend is vegan, I’ll have to make this so both of us can enjoy it. Everything looks delicious.
This was so delicious ! Next time I want to cover the entire 1/2 pepper with the mixture so it’s crunchy at the bottom. I made the MIstake of spaying the bottoms with oil make the almond flour coating stick . Any suggestions ?
Thanks Ebee! So glad you liked this recipe. I have jalapeños in my fridge right now just waiting for this recipe! Just try not spraying it with oil next time and give it a generous dip in the batter. That batter might pool a little in the pan (below the popper) as it bakes and therefore create the coating all around it. I find if I cook it on parchment paper that helps. After you bake them let them cool in the pan for a few minutes to help the coating stick to the popper rather than the pan. Hope this helps!
So good, will definitely make again! I had the block of Daiya Jalapeño Garlic Harvarti in the freezer for a while, which I think caused it to be unshredable. It was too crumbly, but that actually saved me time from having to shred. The crumbles were very easy to mix in. Thank you for sharing!
Are these poppers freezable? If so, do you recommend freezing them before or after baking?
Hi Sue — So glad that worked out with the vegan cheese! I freeze these after baking. Simply let them cool and then place on a tray. Once frozen they can be transferred to a freezer bag. Then allow them to come to room temperature and heat them in a toaster oven or oven to serve.
OMG, Marly! These jalapeno poppers are the bomb! I love cheese and a little bit of spicy in my food. This will be a perfect appetizer or snacks!
Thanks, Mina! I’m all about the spicy! 🙂
I made slight alternations, but this was a great recipe
Hi Loretta. So glad you liked this. It’s a favorite snack here, too!
This is really a very relevant post.