Bacon Wrapped Cream Cheese Pickle Poppers

Stop whatever you are doing right now.

You need to make these.

No.

Really.

You do.

They are about to become thenextbigthing and you want to get in on the ground floor so your friends all think you are super amazeballs. 

So many flavors and textures going on in here that your mind is about to explode. 

I don't even like pickles and these are my new favorite thing in the universe.

I developed this recipe for a bacon party Sue and I had to celebrate Bacon Week here at joandsue.blogspot.com and they were a spectacular success.

Think I'm hyping them too much?

Make them.

Tell me I'm wrong.

I dare you.

Bacon Wrapped Cream Cheese Pickle Poppers

Ingredients

Garlic Bacon Cream Cheese Filling

2 (8 oz) bricks Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 cup cooked and crumbled bacon

salt & pepper

approx 20 medium to large Garlic Dill Pickles (We use Bick's)

20 egg roll wrappers

20 slices bacon, half-cooked (edges a little brown but NOT crispy at all)

Directions

Prepare cream cheese filling - In a blender or food processor, process the cream cheese, garlic, bacon, and salt & pepper until smooth - scraping down sides often.

Scoop filling into a large ziplock baggy with the corner cut off OR a piping bag. Set aside.

Prepare pickles - Using an apple corer, carefully core out the middle of the pickles. Discard the pickle guts (or eat them, your choice!)

Carefully fill the middle of the pickles by squeezing the bag until filling comes out both ends of the pickle. (See photo below)

Continue until all pickles are filled. (I got 20 pickles of varying sizes) Place on paper towel to dry. 

(NOTE - If you want to prepare these the day before you can do it to this step then cover and refrigerate the pickles until ready to cook.) Don't worry if you have little tears/rips in the pickles. You are going to be wrapping them in bacon so it will hide the imperfections!

Prepare the poppers - Preheat the oven to 375. Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and place a wire rack on top. Set aside.

Take an egg roll wrapper and place it in front of you so a corner is pointing towards you. Wrap one piece of the half-cooked bacon around a pickle and place it at the edge of the corner closest to you. (See photo below)

Roll up the corner of the wrapper over the pickle, tucking it in fairly tightly. (See photo below)

Carefully fold in the sides of the wrapper over the pickle. (See photo below)

Dab a little bit of water onto the top corner of the egg roll wrapper (to help it stick) and then fold the corner toward you, over the pickle. Try to get it fairly tight. Set the wrapped pickles onto the prepared cookie sheet. Lightly spray the tops of the poppers with cooking spray. (This step is optional but it does help the wrappers brown up) (See photo below)

Bake at 375 for approx 15 minutes. 

Gently turn the poppers over and bake another 10 - 15 minutes, until the egg roll wrappers are a nice golden brown.

Serve hot. (But be careful because the cream cheese filling is very hot!)

We served some cut in half and some whole so people could see what was inside. 

These are also good room temp they are just not as melty and gooey. 

These were definitely one of the big hits at the party.

People were gobbling them up like crazy. The garlic and bacon and cream cheese and pickle combine to form some kind of magical new taste adventure. 

That last photo is a little blurry but I wanted to include it anyway. You can see the bacon peeking out from around the pickle and see how melty the filling is. 

Crispy, crunchy, smoky, salty, cheesy, pickle-y, heaven in a popper. 

You might be tempted to halve the recipe and only make 10 pickles but DON'T DO IT. They will be gone before the party even starts. Make the whole batch.... you won't regret it!

P.S. - 20 is how many I got. It will depend on the size of your pickles and how full you fill each one. 

**UPDATE** 

We decided to cheat a little and make mini bites to see how they would turn out. If you are having trouble stuffing the larger pickles then this may be the way to go!

We used wonton wrappers instead of egg roll wrappers and then we simply cut the pickles in half, scooped out the seeds, filled with the cream cheese mixture, and sandwiched it between 2 small pieces of bacon. 

Wrap then bake as per above. 

They turned out so cute! And just as delicious as their larger counterparts but a little quicker to put together. 

Don't forget to check out these amazing sites for tons of fun/crafty/tasty links -, Dizzy Busy & Hungry, Memories By The Mile, Carole's Chatter, Feeding Big, Cookin and Craftin,  

Easy Cherry Pie Cream Cheese Egg Rolls (Guest Post at ReneeToday.com)

Sue and I are swapping recipes with a lovely blogger named Renee today.

She shared her delicious "Renee's Chunky Marinara Sauce" with our lucky readers and we are sharing our Easy Cherry Pie Cream Cheese Egg Rolls over on her blog. 

These tasty treats only have 3 ingredients and are super simple. Be sure to go visit Renee's site - HERE - so you don't miss out!

We provided step-by-step instructions and photos that will have you drooling.

Be sure to tell Renee that you are stopping by from joandsue.blogspot.com!

Click HERE for the link to our Easy Cherry Pie Cream Cheese Egg Rolls.

Be sure to stop by Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons for some fun and tasty links!

3 Fillings for Eggrolls or Wontons

Sue and I had a few packages of egg roll wrapper and wonton wrappers to use up and decided to try out some not-so-traditional eggroll snacks and wonton snacks.

We made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Spicy Mexican, and Corned Beef and Cabbage. We both agreed (I know, weird!) that the Corned Beef and Cabbage filling was our favorite. What’s funny about that is Sue almost destroyed the filling while she was making it. We were at my house for the preparation of these and she isn’t used to how I have my spice containers. (I remove the little plastic lid with the holes in it that you can use for sprinkling spices because I find it annoying.) So she grabbed the black pepper to sprinkle into the filling and *boom* about ½ cup of pepper shot into the mixture. We managed to scoop out most of it…and then we doubled the other ingredients in the hopes of thinning the pepper even more….but we were still worried it would be waaaay too peppery to eat.

Nope.

Turns out the extra pepper made it extra tasty. (No, I am not recommending you try it this way. I’m just saying we managed to avert disaster.)

Anyway, if you are looking for some great after school snack ideas then these might be just what you are looking for. You can freeze them and reheat them in the microwave or, if you want them to stay a bit crunchier, in the toaster oven. Of course, you can deep fry these if you want to but we have found that spraying them with a bit of cooking spray and baking them at the high temperature yields just as crunchy and tasty results as deep frying without all that extra added fat. Plus, deep frying freaks me out. I don’t like the thought of that superheated oil catching on fire or spilling or…well… it just makes me nervous!

Chicken Cordon Bleu EGGROLLS

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced very small

4 ounces black forest ham, sliced deli thin and then chopped into 1/4" pieces

1/2 cup Swiss cheese, shredded

egg roll wrappers

1 egg, beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium size bowl, combine the chicken, ham and cheese pieces and stir to mix thoroughly.

Separate the spring roll wrappers and set aside. Beat the egg in a small bowl and set aside as well.

To assemble egg rolls, lay one egg roll wrapper with the corner pointed toward you. Brush a bit of beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Place about 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture on egg roll wrapper.

Fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll. Dip a finger in the beaten egg and seal the edge with egg. Set onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all of the eggrolls have been made. Lightly spray tops of eggrolls with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

Spicy Mexican Wontons

Ingredients

2 tsp oil

½ lb ground beef (lean)
3/4 cup cheese, shredded (either Tex Mex or Jalepeno blend)

2 Tbsp chopped green chillies (We used canned)

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

Wonton wrappers

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Heat oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add beef and cook until meat is browned, breaking up meat as it cooks, about 5 minutes; drain meat. Add cheese, chilies, chili powder and cumin; cook until cheese melts, stirring frequently, about 1 minute.

Place wonton wrappers on a flat surface; drop meat mixture by teaspoonfuls onto center of each wrapper. Moisten edges of wrapper with wet fingers, fold over to cover filling, press down firmly to seal.

Transfer filled wrappers to prepared baking sheet and lightly spray with cooking spray.

ALTERNATIVELY – you can press 2 wonton wrappers together into a muffin tin (sprayed with cooking spray) and fill the wrapper with filling and then bake like this for a little “taco” cup.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

Corned Beef and Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients

2 cups coleslaw

1 Tbsp water

1/2 cup thinly sliced onion

1 cup corned beef, finely diced

Salt & pepper to taste

1 cup diced cooked potato

1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, divided

egg roll wrappers

1 egg beaten

 Directions

In a medium skillet over medium heat, saute coleslaw, water and onions until tender. Add the chopped corned beef, salt & pepper, and saute 1-2 minutes.

Transfer to a large bowl and let cool about 10 minutes. Mix in cooked potatoes and cheese.

To assemble egg rolls, lay one egg roll wrapper with the corner pointed toward you. Brush a bit of beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Place about 1/3 cup of the cabbage mixture on egg roll wrapper. Fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll.

Dip a finger in the beaten egg and seal the edge with egg. Set onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all of the eggrolls have been made. Lightly spray tops of eggrolls with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

 Now I have to print a disclaimer here – the measurements are estimated in the above recipes. Sue and I just kind of threw things in there (especially trying to save the Corned Beef and Cabbage mix). You can pretty much put whatever filling that you want into a wrapper, just remember that you do NOT want to over fill it. If it is too full your wrapper will split and the filling will come out.

And, as for how many egg rolls/wontons we ended up with....hmmmmm…….we had a lot to use up and we made all three recipes at once so I really couldn’t tell you how many we got out of each recipe. I would say about 2 packs of egg roll wrappers and 1 pack of wonton wrappers were used.

Baked Egg Rolls

Who doesn't love egg rolls?
They are usually deep fried, which only adds to the deliciousness. These are baked so it cuts the fat but still keeps the crispiness. Sue (who I think has chinese food flowing in her veins) is the genius behind this particular recipe. I did help with the wrapping and taste testing though.

Baked Egg Rolls

Ingredients

4 cups shredded, cooked pork

2 cups shredded cabbage

1 large carrot, shredded

1/2 medium onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

6 water chestnuts, finely chopped

3 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce

salt and pepper to taste

8 X 8 inch Egg Roll Wrappers

Directions

In a large fry pan, stir fry all ingredients (except wrappers) together. Scrape into bowl and let cool.

When filling is cool (or at least room temp), preheat oven to 400. Take a single egg roll wrapper and place it on the diagonal in front of you. Using water or egg, brush around outside of wrapper - this helps it to stick together better. Place 2 - 3 heaping tablespoons of filling on wrapper as per photo below.

Roll up from bottom corner, tucking in sides as you go. Place on parchment paper lined cookie tray. Spray tops with cooking spray. This is important - if you don't spray them they don't get that lovely golden brown color.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes then gently flip over and bake another 5 minutes. Egg roll should be golden brown and feel crispy if you touch it.

I was surprised at how easy these were to do. It took us about 2 egg rolls each to get the rolling technique down. You have to be careful you don't put too much filling or the egg roll will split.
Don't get me wrong - they are still totally edible, they just won't look as pretty if they split.
If in doubt, use less. (Wow, it's not very often I say that!)

Egg rolls are another one of those foods that can be totally customized to your preferences. I definitely recommend using the water chestnuts though - they add a really nice crunch.

Be sure to stop by Carole's Chatter for tons of great links!