Spicy vegan jalapeño poppers stuffed with dairy-free pimento cheese are a total crowd-pleaser, no deep frying needed. Instead, you make them in the oven or in the air fryer.
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These vegan jalapeño poppers are stuffed with my popular vegan pimento cheese. If you're not a southerner, you might not be familiar with this summer staple!
If pimento cheese just isn't your jam, no worries! You can just mix the vegan cream cheese and vegan cheddar shreds and use that as your filling instead for plain vegan jalapeño poppers.
Pimento cheese is a mixture of cream cheese, cheese shreds, mayo, pimentos, and seasonings. Everyone has their own favorite pimento cheese recipe, and the filling in this recipe uses mine. Feel free to adjust the seasonings in the pimento cheese to suit your own personal tastes!
The pimento cheese filling gives these vegan jalapeño poppers an amazing flavor! They're perfect for parties, potlucks, and cookouts.
🌶️ Ingredients and substitutions
- vegan cream cheese - This is the base for the pimento cheese. Use your favorite!
- pimentos - You can find pimentos with canned vegetables or with pickles and olives in the grocery store. They come in cute little cans!
- garlic - A clove of raw garlic gives this pimento cheese lots of umami flavor and zing!
- vegan cheddar shreds - Vegan cheese is essential for this melty, cheesy filling. You can use pepper jack instead, if you want a bit more heat.
- vegan mayo - Gives the pimento cheese a velvety texture.
- onion powder and white pepper - Deepens the flavor. You can add ½ teaspoon garlic powder, too, if you like.
- hot sauce - More heat! Omit for less spicy.
- jalapeños - The star of the show! Jalapeños can vary greatly in size. If you can't find large ones at the store, just use more small ones.
- panko breadcrumbs - This gives the vegan jalapeño poppers a crunchy topping. You can use gluten-free, if you like.
🔪 How to make vegan jalapeño poppers
Preheat the oven to 400° F, if baking. Oven directions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post. I'll walk you through air fryer directions here. Prep is exactly the same, just the cooking method will change for the oven.
Transfer the cream cheese into a big bowl, so it can get to room temperature. Meanwhile!
Put half of the pimentos plus your garlic into your food processor. Puree until as smooth as possible.
Transfer the pimento puree to the bowl of cream cheese, add the remaining pimento cheese ingredients.
Mix everything together until it's well combined. Stick the bowl into the fridge while you prepare the peppers for stuffing.
Slice the jalapeños in half lengthwise, and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. If you want to reduce the heat, you can also scrape away the vein inside of each pepper.
Pour the panko into a shallow bowl. Scoop around a teaspoon of the pimento cheese almost filling into a jalapeño half. Do not overfill, because that will create a mess in the oven!
Then, press each stuffed jalapeño half -- cheese side down -- into the panko, to get the coating to stick. Arrange the halves, panko side up, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the filling is melty and the jalapeños soften a bit.
💡 Helpful tips
- When you're choosing your vegan cream cheese, cheese shreds, and mayo, opt for ones that you like to eat. Their flavors come through in the finished dish.
- If you don't want to make the pimento cheese, you can use just a mix of the vegan cream cheese and vegan cheddar shreds instead. Other vegan cheese shreds, like mozzarella or pepper jack, will also work well.
- Don't overstuff the jalapeños! The cheeses will melt and soften as these bake or air fry, and if you overfill, they'll make a big mess.
- For less heat, scrape out the veins of the jalapeños, in addition to the seeds. The white veins in jalapeño peppers can actually hold more heat than the seeds do!
- Do not use metal tools in your air fryer! They can scratch the nonstick coating.
- Depending on the cream cheese that you use, your filling may flow out of the jalapeños a little bit during baking. If that happens, just use a spoon to stuff it back in while they're still warm. Some vegan cream cheese just liquifies when it heats, so this is nothing to worry about.
🫙 Serving and storage directions
Vegan jalapeño poppers are definitely best eaten immediately, but they will keep for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator.
You can eat leftovers cold, or you can warm them at 350° F for 10 minutes in the oven or toaster oven or for 5 minutes in the air fryer before serving. I don't recommend warming them in the microwave, because that can cause the panko to get mushy.
💬 Frequently asked questions
If you want these to be less spicy, you can use mini peppers instead. You may need to increase the cooking time, because even mini peppers tend to be bigger than most jalapeños.
If they are bigger than large jalapeños, you'll also want to use more filling, and it may make fewer poppers total. It really just depends on the size, which can vary.
For these vegan jalapeño poppers, we are only breading the tops. To get the breading to stick, you simply press the cheesy side of the poppers into the panko, and it will stick perfectly.
🍴 More ways to use jalapeños
📖 Recipe
🌶️ Vegan Jalapeño Poppers
Equipment
- Air Fryer - optional
Ingredients
For the pimento cheese filling
- 4 ounces vegan cream cheese
- 2 ounces pimentos drained and divided
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 cup vegan cheddar shreds Jack-style vegan cheese shreds also work well.
- 2 tablespoons vegan mayonnaise
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ⅛ teaspoon white pepper
- 1 teaspoons your favorite hot sauce
For the baked jalapeño poppers
- 16 large jalapeños
- ½ cup panko breadcrumbs gluten free is fine, if needed
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400° F, if baking.
Make the pimento cheese filling
- Transfer the cream cheese into a big bowl, so it can get to room temperature. Meanwhile!
- Put half of the pimentos plus your garlic into your food processor. Puree until as smooth as possible.
- Transfer the pimento puree to the bowl of cream cheese, add the remaining ingredients, and mix everything together until it's well combined. Stick the bowl into the fridge while you prepare the peppers for stuffing.
Make the baked jalapeño poppers
- Slice the jalapeños in half lengthwise, and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. If you want to reduce the heat, you can also scrape away the vein inside of each pepper. Pour the panko into a shallow bowl.
- Scoop around a teaspoon of the pimento cheese almost filling into a jalapeño half. Do not overfill, because that will create a mess in the oven! Then, press each stuffed jalapeño half -- cheese side down -- into the panko, to get the coating to stick.
- To bake: Arrange the halves, panko side up, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the filling is melty and the jalapeños soften a bit.
- To air fry: Arrange the halves, panko side up, in a single layer in your air fryer basket. You may need to do more than one batch, if they don't all fit in a single layer. Cook at 390° F for 10-12 minutes, then let them cool in the basket for 5 minutes before serving. The pimento cheese will be very soft at this point, so use a wooden or rubber (NOT METAL) spatula to carefully scoop each one out. It is normal for them to stick together a bit. Gently pry apart any stuck-together jalapeños before lifting out of the basket.
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