Now that I finally feel like I’ve got the hang of making homemade bagels, I wonder what it was that intimidated me about them in the first place. They are not much more complicated than any other yeast bread recipe, and the result is so outstanding that I can’t ever eat store-bought bagels again. Recently I have been having fun playing around with different flavor variations. I have seen jalapeño cheddar bagels in lots of bagel shops and on various blogs, so when my jalapeño plant was overproducing, this was one of the first things that came to mind to help use them up.
I made a half batch of my usual bagel dough and mixed in 2 minced jalapeño peppers as well as some shredded cheddar cheese. We felt this let the jalapeño flavor come through without the bagel actually being spicy. Don’t get me wrong, I like spice, just not really for breakfast. If you are looking for more of a kick, I would use three or four peppers. One of these bagels topped with some cream cheese and homemade salsa made for a fabulous breakfast, and certainly something out of the ordinary.