Jalapeno Cheese Bread

Now, this isn’t a gimmicky bread. It’s not no-knead, it’s not ready in 30 minutes. There’s a little kneading and some rise time, but I promise, the end result is well worth your patience. Plus, letting dough rise is easy!

The dough recipe is actually the exact same as my pizza dough, crackers, and pepperoni rolls, pretty cool huh? Just a few tweaks transform it into this amazing jalapeño (cheddar) cheese bread. Use it for breakfast sandwiches, regular sandwiches or just eat it straight up! It’s all good. So let’s do this!

• Flour, warm water, yeast, oil, sugar, salt, cheese and some dried seasonings like basil, oregano and garlic powder for the dough.

  
  

• Toppings are simple: Italian dressing (you can make your own or use a bottled kind), jalapeños and more cheddar CHEESE.

How to make the dough

This yeast dough starts out like many others, just let the yeast rest in warm water to start. This activates the yeast. Then you add the sugar, oil, spices and cheddar cheese! Stir with a spoon until it looks about like this:

It will be sticky, but that’s what you want. At this point, it’s ready to knead! If you read the recipe below, you will notice that the recipe calls for 3 1/2 cups of flour but before turning the dough out to knead you will have only added 3 cups. I use the remaining half cup to flour the board and sprinkle on top of the dough to keep it from sticking to my hands. This will ensure just enough flour gets in. Adding the full 3 1/2 cups, plus flouring the board and your hands can end you up with too much flour in the dough, which can make it more dense/tough.

After kneading, the dough will need to rise for about 1 hour, you could probably get away with 45 minutes of rise time, I won’t tell. Then it’s into a well greased baking sheet for another rising/resting stint before getting topped with jalapeños, Italian dressing and more cheese. Yes Italian dressing! It really makes the flavor of this bread out of this world. It’s a little sweet, sour and savory flavor that plays so well with everything else we got going on it’s a little crazy.

Let’s talk about a key ingredient in this bread real quick: the jalapeños! I am in love with Trader Joe’s Hot & Sweet Pickled Jalapenos. They definitely pack a punch but have an initial burst of sweetness that I enjoy very much. I need relief every now and then from the spiciness. I’ve also found “tamed” jalapeños at the regular grocery store and enjoyed those as well, those are more sour than spicy and also very good if you like things mild. Clearly I don’t like thing too spicy but use whatever suits your fancy. And please make yourself a sandwich on this bread, you will not regret it!