Awesome Crab Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers

Name: Awesome Crab Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 17 min
Total time: 32 min
Ingredients: 10 large jalapeños; 2 4.5 oz tub of Trader Joe's goat milk creamy cheese; 1 egg; 2 tbsp fresh chopped chives; 6 oz fresh Alaskan King crab ((two legs)); 1/2 cup crushed gluten-free cereal; 2 tbsp goat milk butter; freshly sqeezed lemon juice

by Deana Larkin Evans · September 21, 2023

These awesome gluten-free jalapeño poppers are stuffed with goat milk cream cheese, Alaskan King crab, and fresh chives then topped with a crushed cereal and goat butter mixture.

Awesome Crab and Goat Milk Cream Cheese Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers

I don’t eat seafood often, but every now and then I get a craving for lobster or Alaskan King crab. Especially, when Brett orders crab rangoons when we pick up Chinese take-out. But they aren’t gluten-free.

So I was thinking about trying to do a gluten-free copy cat, but I really just like the stuffing more than the wonton wrappers. And I wanted to keep it very simple.

So after a little thinking about it, I thought it might be fun to make jalapeño poppers with crab instead! I already love this recipe for vegetarian poppers using Trader Joe’s goat milk cream cheese. I just adjusted it a little bit and added in fresh Alaskan King crab.

Jalapeños and King Crab Leg prep for making some awesome poppers

Prepping the Jalapeños

I have started wearing gloves when I handle the jalapeños because they can burn! Just wash them, then cut in half. I use a small spoon (or a grapefruit spoon if you’ve got one) to devein the inside of the jalapeños.

Then I soak them in an ice bath for about 10 minutes to get rid of some of the heat. Then place them on paper towels or a clean kitchen towel to dry.

Prepping the Alaskan King Crab

We bought two Alaskan King crab legs from Central Market. They come pre-cooked so really the only work is removing the meat from the shell. I personally don’t like imitation crab or lump crab from a container. It is just a little too fishy for me.

So we don’t mind a little extra work of breaking it down. We used a pair of kitchen shears to cut the legs open and pull out the meat. Then just break up the crab meat into small pieces and set aside.

Making the goat milk cream cheese stuffing for Awesome Jalapeños and King Crab Leg poppers with crab and freshly chopped chives

Prepping the Stuffing Mixture & Topping

The mixture that goes inside the poppers is really simple. Take two tubs of Trader Joe’s cream cheese (9 ounces) and mix with one egg and freshly chopped chives. Then fold in the crab meat.

The topping is gluten-free brown rice cereal that we ground down in a mini-prep. Then melted goat butter and mixed it with the cereal.

Once you have everything ready to go, place the jalapeño halves on a baking sheet. Then fill with the crab mixture. The mixture generously filled twenty large jalapeño halves.

Stuff jalapeños with crab cream cheese mixture

And then just top with the cereal (or gluten-free panko) mixture. I did press it down a little so that it would stick to the mixture. We baked it for 15 minutes and then broiled the topping for a couple minutes to get is nicely browned.

Awesome Crab and Goat Milk Cream Cheese Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers before baking topped with crushed rice cereal and butter mixture

It really is a super easy recipe and the results were fantastic! They tasted better after coming to room temperature and were even better cold! Especially, with fresh squeezed lemon juice.