I don’t often think about a certain type of food as being cute, but I have to admit the thought crossed my mind when I first laid eyes on baby peppers. The next thought was how can I use these in a recipe and appetizer jumped out at me.

These little darlings make the perfect grab and go appetizer and I’ve found people tend to like the simplicity of that the most. The peppers are also very tender and sweet and a perfect compliment to a wide variety of cheese concoctions.

For this particular recipe I used a combination of a spreadable garlic and herb cheese, Boursin brand, and added some green onion and dill to boost the flavor of the cheese. It couldn’t have been easier. And when I served it at a gathering, the entire plate of peppers disappeared!

So let’s talk stuffed baby peppers…

Lesson Learned 1 – Sometimes the simplest things are the best: I used to think that recipes had to be complicated and flashy to merit writing about. And I’ve been proven wrong over and over again. The best example I can give is my cream cheese, spinach, bacon and scallion pinwheels. After I made them I hesitated to post the recipe because I thought it was so rudimentary and people would laugh at it. Boy was I wrong. To this day that recipe is one of the most popular recipes on my blog – and I would never have dreamed it to be when I wrote it.

This recipe, in my mind, falls in the same genre. It basically takes a pre-made spreadable cheese embellished with a couple of simple ingredients and some baby peppers and voila, a simple but great appetizer! This kind of appetizer is perfect for when you have to throw something together quickly. It’s super tasty, looks divine, and disappears in a snap. What could be better? So, bottom line, don’t shy away from what’s incredibly easy. In the end, it may be one of the most popular things you’ll make.

Lesson Learned 2 – Working with baby peppers: First let me suggest that you get a bag of multi-colored baby peppers. The array of colors on a plate makes for an easy but effective presentation. Second, baby peppers are incredibly easy to work with. They don’t have a lot of seeds or the strips of white pith inside so they are easy to cut and prepare. Just take your knife and cut the pepper in half from top to bottom, remove the few seeds you may find and if you have a little pith just take your knife and scrape it away. In no time flat you have a tasty bite size little boat to hold your cheese concoction.

Probably the biggest challenge with this recipe is stuffing the peppers – but you really don’t have to worry about being overly neat with the cheese stuffing. I used a melon baller, the smaller side, and just scooped some of the cheese into a pepper and spread it over the top. You wind up garnishing the peppers with some paprika and the remaining minced green onions and that gives them a decorative flair.

And that’s it. Now I chose to “beef up” the spreadable cheese I used, but you don’t even need to do that if you don’t have the time or ingredients. If you get a flavorful spreadable cheese, that can be sufficient. Just make sure you use a spreadable cheese, otherwise stuffing the peppers will definitely become a chore. Enjoy these tasty little morsels. You’ll have fun making them and you’ll have fun eating them!