Goat Cheese Stuffed Padron Peppers

Well hello delicious.  You may have gathered by now that I’m obsessed with padrons.  Come summer, I’m eating the little guys right and left.  Usually, I just saute ’em up with a teensy olive oil and salt until brown and munch whole- so scrumptious!!  Lately though, I’ve been whipping them up in other forms.  I made padron stuffed chicken breasts (yummm) recently and now these- stuffed padrons.  If you’re not familiar with padrons, they’re little peppers that aren’t spicy, but instead just deliciously smokey and slightly sweet.  But take heed: every rare now and then, one might find a padron that’s surprisingly hot.  They’re sometimes known as “the roulette pepper” because of that random rare surprise.  But 99 times out of 100, they’re flawlessly amazing.  The baskets below are actually a mix of peppers… two baskets of padrons and one of Shishitos- I got them at the farmer’s market this week, as I do every week.  They’re nearly the same in flavor… both oh-so good.  So if you are familiar with Shishitos by some random chance, you kind of know padrons.  Highly recommend you try either 🙂  So back to these little goat cheese stuffed padrons… to die for.  Well in my padron-obsessed mind anyway.  If you like jalapeno poppers, you’d probably like these, too 🙂  Minus the breading and frying, they’re a similar concept.  Little not-spicy peppers stuffed with creamy cheese.  Now how can that be bad?!  I’ve had a ton of goat cheese around lately (for my other obsession- the little fig and goat cheese toasts), so it was a no-brainer… I’m stuffing these little bad boys like mad lately!!

It’s super easy… about 10 minutes from start to finish, 1 pan, 2 ingredients,

and worth every little ounce of effort it takes!

The middle basket up there are the Shishitos… hard to tell any difference really, other

than a teeny little ridge that runs along them.  Padrons are more common around

the markets here… find whichever you can.

True story:  I made this batch as a little appetizer for my boyfriend and I.  I sauteed them up, plated them, and then took a pic.  But then, something awful happened.  I ate one, just to try it.  And then I ate another,  And another.  And another.  I didn’t really notice until I went to take another picture, excited about how tasty they were, that I had only one left on the plate to photograph.  Oops.

Needless to say, more I made.

They’re crazy addicting I tell you- watch out!!

padron peppers

goat cheese

pinch of salt

drizzle of olive oil

Using a knife, slice open the pepper by cutting from the

top towards the bottom (not all the way down though)

You don’t need to remove seeds or anything… just cut pepper

open enough to get cheese in there

Now carefully place cheese inside- I found it easiest to crumble the goat cheese

into teeny pieces rather than put in one whole chunk of cheese.  It’s okay

if the pepepr rips a little, but try to keep it as together as you can 🙂

Get them all nice and stuffed…

And then close up seal and wipe off any excess cheese (paper towel works great)

Heat a little olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat

Place pepeprs in pan and cook for a few minutes, until browned

This was my first batch…

This was my second- clearly hungry, excited to eat more, and hurrying… no care for closing that seal at all, but turns out the cheese didn’t ooze out anyway!  So don’t worry about it being too tidy 🙂

Turn/flip in pan to brown other sides and sprinkle with a little salt

When sizzling and browned, remove from heat and plate

So easy right?!

Everyone’s salt preference is different- you may want to sprinkle on more, you may not…

Gobble and enjoy!!

See, this was my pathetic one last pepper from the first

batch’s photograph haha… just couldn’t control myself!!