I’ve always been a one-coffee kind of person. I use to not even be able to finish my one cup. But then I hit 30 and I would prefer to have 3 cups in a day. Which feels a bit indulgent since my nespresso machine makes the creamiest coffee of all time. Have I ever had 3 coffees in a day? No, because my heart would probably explode out of my chest. I’m prone to anxiety already, let alone when I have multiple cups of coffee. I’m not sure if coffee even makes me more productive. I think I just like the comfort of it first thing in the morning. I like the routine. I’m heading out of town for a hot minute this weekend and I already have anxiety about not knowing where I’ll get my hot cup of coffee on Sunday morning. Is that what you would call addiction? I think so. I guess it’s better than being addicted to whatever drugs that guy was on who made out with a intercom for 3 hours straight. Man that story creeps me out so hard.
I’ve pretty much stopped watching the news altogether since all they really ever talk about nowadays is Trump, the government shutdown, and more Trump. It’s too exhausting seeing his orange face day-after-day. But I made the mistake of turning on the new yesterday instead of The Office and was immediately met with the video of that man face diving into an intercom. If you haven’t watched the video yet, it’s a must. Problem is, you’ll never get those images out of your head. I also found out that he’s a repeat offender. HE’S DONE THIS BEFORE!! This isn’t some one-time thing. I’m all about supporting whatever fetishes people have, as long as it’s not my own intercom. If you’re in to intercoms, you need to keep one in your own home. And can we just take a second to think about how his mother must have seen this? Can you imagine watching the news and that video is YOUR SON. So many traumatic pieces of this story. So many.
It was a good reminder to stay away from the news. I would love to stay relevant with what is happening in our world, but the older I get, the more I notice how news stories really correlate with moods. And the more people watch the news, the angrier they normally are. Have you ever noticed that? It’s a sad, true fact. But you know what isn’t sad? This casserole. I have to say, I really like this casserole, but it isn’t my favorite of all time. My Biscuits & Gravy Casserole, Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole, Chili “Cornbread” Casserole and Taco Lasagna Casserole are still my top favorites. But I can still get behind this one since it’s crazy easy to make. But I have to be honest with you guys, ya know? So here, I’ll be honest about one more things…I’m in to other people’s intercoms. There I said it. Now you know me on a deeper level. Kloveyoubye!
Jalapeño Popper Chicken Casserole
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 6-8 1x
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound thick cut bacon
- 6 jalapeño peppers, cut in half lengthwise (+1 extra jalapeño sliced for garnish)
- 2 (16 ounce) packages of frozen cauliflower florets
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- pinch of black pepper
- 2 eggs
- 1 rotisserie chicken, pulled
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 2 (8 ounce) containers of dairy-free cream cheese*
- 1/3 cup avocado oil mayo
- 3 tablespoons hot sauce (I use Frank’s Red Hot Sauce)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- chives, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease medium size baking dish.
- Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a wire rack on top. Spray with coconut oil spray. Place bacon and jalapeños on wire rack and spray jalapeños with the coconut oil spray, as well. Place in the oven to cook for 15 minutes, until bacon is crispy and jalapeños are blistered. Once slightly cooled, run jalapeños under cold water to remove the burnt skin. And if you prefer to a less spicy dish, remove the seeds from the jalapeños. Set aside.
- While the bacon and jalapeños cook, steam cauliflower until fork tender. Add to a high speed blender and blend to combined. Then add nutritional yeast, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and 1 egg and blend until super smooth. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer, add the pulled chicken and turn on mixer to the lowest speed. This will shred the chicken. Then add red bell pepper, mayo, cream cheese, 1 egg, hot sauce and salt and pepper, turn on and mix until combined. Chop the bacon and jalapeños into tiny pieces. Add all the jalapeños along with most of the bacon, leaving some behind for topping the casserole. Mix once more to combined.
- Place chicken mixture in to baking dish and smooth out. Then pour the cauliflower mixture on top and smooth out. Top with sliced jalapeños and bacon throughout.
- Bake for 30 minutes. Top with chopped chives before serving!
Notes
*I use Kite Hill almond milk cream cheese
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This looks so good! I love how you keep re-inventing the jalapeno popper in so many different ways, I’ll definitely be trying this soon!
I made this over the weekend and it was a huge hit. My mom shared it with some co-workers and they loved it But i didn’t have any Franks Red Sauce at my house when i was cooking this, so i use El Pato sauce in the yellow can and it was so delicious.
I cant wait to try another recipe of yours.
awesome!! so glad to hear you liked it!
This was delicious! My whole family loved it! Lots of different flavors
awesome!! glad you liked it Rachel!
I was really excited about this recipe but I felt like I was eating cat food. The casserole was mushy and definitely not worth all the effort. I’ve had great success with a lot of your recipes and truly appreciate your work but this one felt like it really missed the mark.
so sorry to hear that Holly!
Just wanted to let you know that I prepped this while pretty tired and hence realized afterwards I didn’t follow the directions 100% correctly… but it still turned out AWESOME. I mixed both mixtures together at the end… oops. Not sure what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking, I think that was the problem. I also only had one package of low fat cream cheese and one package of fat free smooth cottage cheese, so I used those in place of the dairy free cream cheese, and I froze it to actually eat the following week. I transferred it from the freezer to the fridge the night before cooking it, and it was still seriously so good despite me doing a few things wrong!
glad it still turned out jessica!! and so glad you liked it!
I absolutely LOVED this casserole. I was nervous about nutritional yeast cause I’ve had some not too appetizing experiences with it, but there was no need to be. The spice was just right and the texture was great! I ate it was a side salad of arugula with tessame’s habanero ranch! This is going into the rotation for when it’s time to indulge! Thanks Juli!!
yay!! so glad you liked it Cass!
Thank you Juli! I made this last night with Chicken I roasted on the Traeger. It was delicious.
that’s the best kind of chicken!
SO YUMMY! I loved this recipe. Definitely going into the regular rotation.
wooooohooo! glad to hear it Devon!
This is incredible, Juli!!! It will definitely be a regular for us. I apparently didn’t accurately check the recipe before going to the store so I made the following substitutions:
-1 Kite Almond Cream Cheese instead of 2
-Regular Mayo (I used Sir Kensington)
-Nutritional Yeast –> Parmesan Cheese
glad you liked it Leah!!
My family loves your bacon cheeseburger casserole, so I’m excited to try this one. Having a hard time finding Whole 30 cream cheese, any other suggestions?
i’m sorry, but the only almond milk cream cheese I know of at this point is kite hill!