There is so much to love at the Farmer’s Market. Baskets of sweet, fuzzy peaches and juicy, red tomatoes. Lush bouquets of herbs and flowers. Pints of spicy jalapeño peppers that call out your name, yet once home hide in the refrigerator until they are so wrinkled you suspect they found a way to take a long bath.
Hmm, how to use those ugly, wrinkly, yet still very edible jalapeño peppers? Cue the music and enter cream cheese. Unless it gets dropped in a pile of dirt, I can’t imagine anything formed with cream cheese could turn out badly.
Taking a nod from a warm dip chock full of sweet corn and jalapeño peppers – a dip my friend Dawn is required to bring to each and every get together less she lose our friendship – I decided to make my own sweet corn and jalapeño pepper dip, complete with juicy, red tomatoes. If you want to add meat, many jalapeño dip recipes include 1/2 cup of bacon in place of tomatoes or corn.
I baked the dip in an 8-x-8 inch dish, and while it made a fine proportion for snacking purposes, I would recommend doubling or tripling the recipe for sharing with larger groups. I preferred the dip right out of the oven, but it reheated well both in the oven and the microwave.
Despite my love of baking sweet treats, one of my favorite snacks is salty chips paired with a creamy dip. This summer veggie jalapeño dip allowed me to indulge in snacking and still feel like I was eating healthy because of all the vegetables. Allow me my delusions please. Enjoy!
- 1, 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup mayonnaise or plain, Greek yogurt
- 1 cup jalapeno peppers, deseeded and diced (about 5 jalapenos)
- ½ cup tomatoes, diced
- ½ cup corn
- ½ cup cheddar or Mexican-blend grated cheese
- ½ cup cracker or bread crumbs for topping, if desired
- Mix together the cream cheese and mayonnaise or Greek yogurt until creamy.
- Add the jalapenos, tomatoes, corn, and cheese, mixing until well combined.
- Pour the mixture into an 8-by-8 baking dish and top with cracker or bread crumbs if using.
- Bake at 375 degrees F for 20-25 minutes until the dip is bubbling around the edges and/or the topping is browned.
- Remove the dip from the oven, allow to cool slightly, then serve warm.
I like that you can use Greek yogurt or mayo in your recipe. I try to stay away from mayo and never thought to sub Greek yogurt. So you jalapenos went wrinkly, too. Have you ever had yours turn red also?
Yes, one of them is partially red now. What’s up with that?
I Googled why this happens, and depending on which resource you trust, apparently all jalapenos will turn red as they fully ripen. I also read all limes will turn from green to yellow as they fully ripen. Interesting.
Ah! Good to know. Interesting that all this time we’ve been eaten unripened peppers. That’s also interesting about the limes. Someone once told me that a lime and a lemon were basically the same fruit and in a blind taste test you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two. I feel like I could, but now knowing that they also turn yellow, I question if there may not be some truth the to statement. Perhaps they only taste different because they’re not ripe yet.