Mac & Cheese Poppers

These were amazing. Seriously amazing. I will make just the filling as my mac and cheese for a long long time now. Dear Everyone I make it for, I hope you like Jalapenos!! This was our second Jalapeno Popper recipe and due to my love of mac and cheese, it was probably my favourite ever. The heat is pretty low on these if you get all the ribs out. We actually added hot sauce to the white sauce to add that extra little bit. We didn't change this one up too much, other then we halved it again. Here's the original recipe with my changes below.

Adapted from Rachael Ray

16 jalapeño peppers

Salt

1/2 pounds ditalini pasta

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
Pepper
1 tablespoon yellow mustard

1/4 cup breadcrumbs or crushed saltine crackers

 

I cooked 1 cup (pre-cooking) of Macaroni instead of the ditalini pasta. We ended up with a bit extra for the 15 Poppers we had to fill. I stuck to the butter and flour, but used all milk for my white sauce. I eyeballed the cheese, just until the sauce was extra thick, orange and cheesy. We added the Hot Sauce like I said, just about a tsp. And the salt and pepper.

 

Start these off like any other, slicing the top 1/3 off the pepper length ways. Chop up the tops and throw them in with the cooked pasta into the cheese sauce.

 

Scoop out the insides of the peppers, I use a grapefruit spoon, since it helps to grate the ribs out of the inside. Fill these up with the jalapeno mac & cheese mixture, I liked to heap them up a little bit. Top these off with the breadcrumbs and some extra cheddar. Bake these in the oven at 425 F for about 15 minutes. These also got devoured too fast for a photo - so good!