Chicken Bacon Ranch Jalapeño Poppers

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Jalapeno Poppers, but make them infinitely better by mixing ranch seasoning, diced chicken breast, and crumbled bacon into the cream cheese mixture then top’m off with crispy cheesy smokey panko. THE BEST.

I’ll admit this. I took photos of this recipe YESTERDAY thinking I had an entire week before Super Bowl Sunday…. turns out it’s THIS Sunday. OOPS. So I literally dropped everything to get these Chicken Bacon Ranch Jalapeno Poppers here on the blog for y’all to make this weekend! I normally talk a bit here, but I don’t have time for that today. Let’s keep it short and sweet. These are incredible and you absolutely need to make them!

HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN BACON RANCH JALAPENO POPPERS:

Gather your ingredients!

• Jalapeños- If you’re nervous about them being too spicy for everyone. Grab a bag of those mini sweet peppers and mix them up! The sweet peppers have zero spice and taste delicious too!
• 1/3 less fat cream cheese
• nonfat Greek yogurt
• Bacon crumbles
• chopped and cooked chicken breast
• ranch seasoning packet (the restaurant dressing version is my favorite one, you can use the regular packet but start with about half the packet and add more if you need it)
• shredded Mexican cheese blend made with 2% milk
• panko breadcrumbs (be sure they are the panko bread crumbs, the super fine breadcrumbs just do nothing for this recipe)
• light butter (or butter if you want!) I use this Brummell and brown version, but there are lots of different brands that carry something like this.
• diced green onions (or dried minced onion or even onion powder is fine too)
• smoked paprika, salt, and garlic powder
• cooking spray

First things first. YOU NEED TO WEAR GLOVES.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, grab a sheet pan and line it with some parchment paper.

Don’t forget your gloves! Slice jalapeños in half length wise and then scoop out the seeds and membranes with a small spoon. Don’t forget your gloves! Don’t scratch your nose! Or your eyeball! Don’t you dare!

Maybe open a window too.

In a bowl add chopped chicken breast, diced green onion, cream cheese, nonfat Greek yogurt, crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, and ranch seasoning packet. Mix together super well!

Again, wearing gloves, stuff each jalapeño half with chicken, bacon, ranch cream cheese mixture. Probably about 2 tablespoons in each pepper less for the smaller peppers little more for larger ones.

In a small microwave safe bowl melt 1 tablespoon of light butter in the microwave (about 12 seconds should do it). Add in 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs along with 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, a few pinches of dried parsley (for color really not a must have ingredient), a pinch of salt. Gently stir together really well. Add in 1/4 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend and stir.

Top each jalapeño popper with the cheesy panko topping. To ensure you don’t waste the topping. Hold each pepper over the bowl of breadcrumbs while you press the bread crumbs on top of each pepper so that any excess drops right back into the bowl of crumbs. As you can see some still gets wasted, but not nearly as much as if you were to top them each oh the tray.

Finally, Place them into a preheated 400 degree oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. After you remove from the oven, let’em just set for about 5-10 minutes. Don’t go and burn the roof of your mouth off okay?

and here they are! You just wanna reach into your screen and pop one into your mouth, right? I know I do! I’m so glad that these are literally in my fridge right now and I can go have a small plate of them for lunch.

These Chicken Bacon Ranch Jalapeño Poppers are exactly what you need to enjoy those commercials! Ahem, I mean, the football game! Ha! I’m just kidding, y’all know I mean the half time show.

Make. Eat. Repeat!

Now, you know what would be even more awesome? Dipping them into some of my homemade Skinny Ranch!