Bacon Jalapeño Cheese Bread

This delicious bacon jalapeño cheese bread is soft, buttery and just full of the flavor of pepper, bacon and Monterey Jack Cheese. The bread is a very versatile, all around recipe.

Cheese is a huge hit with most Americans. It even has its own National Day – January 20 is celebrated each year as National Cheese Lover’s Day.

I hope to make you a fan with this tasty cheese bread. 

It makes the perfect side to serve with hearty stews, and is great as a breakfast bread or with a hot bowl of soup.

Making bacon jalapeño cheese bread

My husband loves anything with spicy peppers in it. The hotter the better is his motto.  I also love spicy food, but can’t take quite the heat that he does.

We both love cheese and carbs too, so I thought I would try combining them into a bread to see how we liked the end result.  It was a HUGE success!

This recipe makes a wonderful party bread, sliced thinly and served hot.  I love it for breakfast in thicker pieces and it’s just perfect to serve as a side dish to go along with any hearty casserole or stew. The key to this bread is using a good quality bacon. I chose Wright Brand Naturally Hickory Smoked Bacon.   This thick, hand crafted bacon is slowly and expertly smoked for a delicious taste.

Wright uses the best cuts of premium meat, that are hand selected and then hand-trimmed.

Smoke masters expertly then craft a smoke flavor for a wonderful end result.  The bacon is perfect for this recipe and also is wonderful with eggs in the morning because of the thick, hearty slices.

Monterey Jack cheese, cream cheese, buttermilk and jalapeño peppers round out the ingredients.
I always bake my bacon in the oven on a baking rack.

It is simple to do and allows the grease to drain away in a baking pan below the rack and still gives me long thick slices that are perfectly cooked and very crispy.

It is the perfect way to do it for this recipe.  I just pop the baking pan and rack in the oven while I get the rest of the ingredients ready and the bacon is then ready to chop and add to the cheese and cream cheese mixture. TIP for dealing with jalapeño peppers.  Wear disposable gloves.  

The eyes do NOT like to have even a tiny residue of peppers near them.

When I said I don’t like my peppers too spicy, I will add that I HATE having peppers near my eyes.  

(don’t even ask me how I know this…just suffice it to say that a big part of the pre-recipe routine in my house was spent dancing in a circle, jumping up and down, and shrieking in pain.)

The remedy, by the way, is to splash the eyes with milk! But note to self for the next time and forever…wear gloves when slicing spicy peppers. So…to recap:

• Wear gloves
• If you don’t wear gloves, splash your eyeball with a shot glass full of whole milk
• Continue making your bacon jalapeño cheese bread

I love the way this bread comes together.  You don’t even need a mixer to make it!  I just combined my softened cream cheese, Monterey Jack cheese in a bowl and mixed it well.  

The jalapeño peppers were diced (I removed the seeds so that it would not be too spicy, but you can keep them if you really like it hot.)  I really wanted the bacon and cheese to be the star of the bread, more than the peppers.

But do whatever floats your boat. It is a very forgiving recipe.  The flour, baking powder, salt and sugar were combined and whisked lightly to incorporate them well. Now, all that was left to do was to add the cream cheese mixture, 1 tablespoon of canola oil and the buttermilk to the whisked dry ingredients and then everything was mixed by hand until they are all combined.  

Don’t overdo it on the mixing.  You will want it just mixed well, but still chunky and hearty looking. This bacon jalapeño cheese bread takes a while to cook. I used a 9 x 5″ pan and cooked mine for about 50 minutes.   I added a bit of melted butter, after cooking, with a silicone basting brush, to the top of the loaf to give it a more rich taste when it came right out of the oven.

It is best served hot.  If a loaf is not what you are looking for, you can even drop the batter and make biscuits or muffins.  Just reduce the cooking time if you do this to about 15-18 minutes. This is not a light and fluffy bread.  It’s real COMFORT FOOD, as in Like WHOA, I want a piece (or five) right now… Make this bread in the morning if you are up early enough. The aroma of it cooking is amazing and will get any early morning stragglers going in a hurry.  

I found my husband hanging around all during the cooking process, saying “something smells so good.” And that was just the bacon cooking!

Can’t wait for him to dig into a piece of the finished bread!  I’ll be “best wife EVER” tonight, I just know it! I have to say… this bread looks and also tastes amazing! The bread is dense and the peppers, jalapenos and cheese is mixed so that you can taste them in every bite! I can’t wait to serve this with a hot bowl of soup tonight.

The weather has decided to have one last try at winter this weekend, so this is the perfect choice!

What is your favorite way to incorporate bacon into your recipes?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!  

Yield: 12

Bacon Jalapeno Cheese Bread

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This delicious bacon jalapeño cheese bread is soft, buttery and just full of the flavor of pepper, bacon and Monterey Jack Cheese. The bread is a very versatile, all around recipe.  

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

• 8-10 slices Bacon. I used Wright® Brand Naturally Hickory Smoked Bacon, cooked and diced (about 2 cups)
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp Himalayan Sea salt
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 medium jalapeño peppers, seeds removed and diced (about 1/4 cup)
• 2 cups Monterey Jack cheese
• 12 ounces buttermilk
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• 1 tbsp butter (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven 350 º F
2. Spray a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray
3. In a large bowl combine the cream cheese, jalapenos, bacon and Monterey Jack cheese. Stir to combine well.
4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Whisk gently to combine.
5. Add the cream cheese mixture, 1 tbsp canola oil and buttermilk to the dry ingredients, and mix by hand until just combined, don't over-mix.
6. Pour the mixture into loaf pan.
7. Bake 45 to 50 minutes, until the top of the loaf is lightly browned. (I covered my bread for the last 8 minutes or so with foil so it would not brown too much.)
8. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack.
9. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing from the loaf pan.
10. Brush with the melted butter. (optional)
11. Serve warm or at room temperature.
12. Enjoy!

Notes

You can also make muffins with this batter. Just drop by heaping spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes. Or fill muffin cups and bake for about 18 minutes. So Yum!

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

12

Serving Size:

1/12th of the loaf
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 355Total Fat: 20gSaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 53mgSodium: 709mgCarbohydrates: 29gFiber: 1gSugar: 5gProtein: 15g

Nutritional information is approximate due to natural variation in ingredients and the cook-at-home nature of our meals.

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