Chorizo Breakfast Poppers

These beautiful sweet mini peppers stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese are perfect for breakfast, a snack, or parties.

On a recent trip to our house in New Harmony, we arrived late at night after a long drive, with work and deadlines awaiting me early the next morning.  You know that song with lyrics something like “Just call me angel in the morning”?  Well, no one would call me an angel at the break of day.  Ever.  You can imagine my excitement when I looked in the freezer when we arrived and found hope for a beautiful morning in the form of a frozen batch of one of the tastiest bites of breakfast ever created.  Smart me had thought ahead on a prior visit and had stashed some away to be thawed, reheated and served in the future.  The future had arrived.

Whether you eat them when you first make them or create a stockpile for a later day, you’ll want to pop out these poppers!  (And don’t fret if you aren’t able to find mini peppers.  You can get colored big peppers and cut them into squares that are one inch by one inch.  Or, if you want more of a stuffed pepper and not small bites, you can cut big colored peppers in half, remove the seeds, and stuff the entire half pepper.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. pork chorizo sausages
• 8 oz. softened cream cheese
• 1/2 colored pepper, chopped finely
• 12-15 sweet mini peppers, sliced in half, lengthwise, seeds removed (You can keep the stem on, or remove it — you’re in charge!)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.

Place the chorizo meat and the chopped colored pepper into a  skillet (I like to use a nonstick pan) and cook over medium to medium high heat for 8 minutes.  (The first time I ever cooked chorizo, the recipe I was using said to cook until done.  How in the heck would you know?  It starts out with such a dark red color from all the paprika and other spices in it, that it is very confusing.  I find it comforting to have a statement of time so I have a ballpark.)  In terms of your stove temp, you don’t want it to be so high that the chorizo is burning, but you want it to be hot enough that it is really cooking.  Use a strong silicone or wood implement to keep breaking up and stirring the mixture.

After the chorizo is cooked, cut your cream cheese into several chunks and stir it into the chorizo/peppers mixture over low heat and mix until the cream cheese is thoroughly melted.

Line up your pepper halves and use a big spoon to stuff the filling mixture into each of them.  Looking at the batch I pictured, I see that I could have stuffed them more fully.  The filling appears to shrink just a little bit during baking, so be generous.

Bake for 15 minutes.  Remember — they freeze well, if you can keep them from all being eaten as they come out of the oven.  Hint:  Make a double batch.

My favorite way of serving these for breakfast is with little servings of berries and cream on the side.  The sweet juicy berries play well with the amazing stuffed peppers.

Woo hoo!  Chorizo breakfast poppers!