Jalapeno Popper Panini

I don’t know if it is the fact that I was born and raised in Arizona, but I LOVE spicy food. I do like my taste buds though, so I don’t do the “melt your face off” spicy. I am also finding that as I am watching what I eat and counting my calories, I have really been craving spicy Mexican food. In particular I’ve been wanting some jalapeno poppers or my sausage stuffed jalapenos recipe. Traditionally those aren’t friendly on the waistline though. I challenged myself to incorporate the jalapeno popper flavors into a lower calorie meal.

The result was jalapeno popper paninis. It’s like I had died and gone to heaven. This was actually the first time I had made a panini and I am now obsessed. I borrowed my mom’s panini press and now I’m not so sure she’ll be getting it back. 😉

Jalapeno Popper Panini

Ingredients:

2 Slices Sourdough Bread
4 Slices – thin sliced deli ham
2 Tablespoons Cream Cheese – I used Fat Free
1 slice Pepper Jack or other cheese
3 small/medium roasted jalapenos

Directions:

For the jalapenos: Place the jalapenos on a grill over direct heat. Roast on all sides until they are nice and charred. Place the jalapenos in a freezer bag and let them steam for a few minutes. The steam will make the skin easy to rub or peel off. After you remove the skin, remove the jalapeno top and cut the pepper down the side. Remove the seeds and the membranes.
Plug in your panini press to pre-heat it.
Lay down one slice of bread and layer the cheese, ham, and jalapenos. On the other slice of bread, apply a layer of cream cheese.
Add the slice of bread with the cream cheese to your sandwich and grill in your panini press. Mine has an indicator light but I think it took about 4 minutes to grill.
Serve while nice and hot!

A word about jalapenos. I don’t care for raw jalapenos, they are just too much for me. The roasted jalapenos are just perfect though. I feel like it better mimics a jalapeno popper as well, since those are cooked jalapenos. Roasting them on the grill is very easy, but if you don’t want to do that, you could use raw jalapenos or pickled jalapenos. Seriously though, fire roast them. You will be glad you did!

I have made these 3 times since I created a recipe a week ago. They are just too good. For lunch, I only make a half a sandwich and that works out perfectly for me. I was pretty surprised but the no-fat cream cheese is actually really good. It’s made from skim milk and I love it!

What’s your favorite spicy dish? I’m always on the look-out for new recipes to try out.