9 Frozen Jalapeño Poppers, Ranked From Worst To Best

A bar snack that exploded in popularity in the '90s, the jalapeño popper is just as easy to enjoy at home these days. That's great news for those of us who are fans of these spicy, cheesy snacks but don't always want to leave the house to get them. A smaller, handheld take on chile rellenos, the jalapeño popper shares a flavor template with that classic Mexican dish, with a deep-fried American spin, great for game day or any casual get-together.

You could make jalapeño poppers yourself from scratch, but why strain yourself when there are plenty of options in the freezer aisle of your nearest grocery store? No need to deseed peppers, set up a messy breading station, or deal with boiling oil. We scoured shelves to track down frozen jalapeño poppers that can be easily prepared in the oven or air fryer in order to discover which ones are the tastiest, so you can get these spicy bites hot, golden, and ready to eat in no time at all.

9. Market Pantry Cream Cheese Stuffed Jalapeños

I struggle to find a reason why anyone should opt for Market Pantry's Cream Cheese Stuffed Jalapeños over any other brand. By the ounce, their price comes out on the more expensive side compared to most of the others, and every element is lacking in some way. Market Pantry is Target's store brand, so I suppose if you're a regular Target grocery shopper (and if you are, make sure you're shopping on the right day to maximize your savings), that would make them convenient to pick up. Otherwise, you can get a much better jalapeño popper experience with any of the other boxes on this list.

My main gripe is with the cream cheese filling — or more accurately, the lack of it. At first, I was impressed that every popper stayed intact in the oven, but after cutting or biting into them, the cheese was so liquidy that it leaked out anyway. I was left with breading and jalapeño peppers of uneven thickness, and a little bit of cheese residue. Needless to say, the balance of flavors and textures was extremely off. I hoped that maybe the filling issue was a fluke, but it happened with each one that I tried. The soft-but-crispy breading texture is the best part of these, but it's not very flavorful. With a little dip of ranch, these were somewhat enjoyable, but the creamy dip was really just taking the place of the missing filling.

8. Farm Rich Jalapeño Peppers

The one thing going for Farm Rich Jalapeño Peppers is the size of the box. At a whopping 17 ounces, there's plenty in here to feed a crowd, making it decent value. They cooked well in the air fryer, without any leaking or bursting. However, the actual product itself has a fair number of issues that put it towards the low end of this ranking. My first bite tasted like nothing but bread, and I noticed that the breading on each popper was wildly uneven in thickness. You never know what you're going to get with each bite. There's no consistency in shape, amount of filling, or size of these poppers.

Neither the breading nor the cream cheese filling were very well seasoned, so the only real flavor you get is from the peppers. Without the balance, you may as well be eating peppers on their own and not bother with the other elements. I threw a little salt on one of these peppers and it improved the taste experience significantly, but that doesn't solve the size or balance issues.

7. Crav'n Flavor Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers

While far from perfect, Crav'n Flavor's Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers make a pretty good little snack. They're among the most affordable options on this list, and I was able to taste both cream cheese and cheddar cheese varieties. Both had good flavor, with a light, fine-crumbed breading. I wished there was more cheese in both of them, but what was there was flavorful, especially in the Cheddar version. The main thing I enjoyed about these poppers was the spicy heat. These peppers were by far the hottest of all the poppers I tried, and the rich flavor of the cheese worked well balancing out their intensity.

The soft breading didn't offer much structure. They seemed flimsy, but held together well and didn't burst or leak when cooked. These poppers benefitted the most from taking a swim in ranch dip, as it helped temper the peppery heat, adding nice balance. With a little more cheese inside, these would jump up a few notches. As is, I'd eat them again, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find them.

6. Kroger Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers

If you're not the biggest fan of heat, Kroger's Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers are the ones for you. The peppers themselves are almost a supporting character here, which somewhat defeats the purpose, but these poppers would be perfect for people who want a bit of a kick but may have sensitive palates when it comes to spice. They were a little too mild for me, personally, but they have a lot of other excellent qualities.

The breading was thick, coarse, and crunchy, and stayed in one piece throughout the cooking process. These are thick and filled with massive heaps of cream cheese, so it's impressive that they didn't burst in the air fryer, and the dense layer of filling cooked evenly all the way through. On the cheaper end of the spectrum, these poppers really deliver a lot of texture and flavor, even if they're lacking in the heat department. The filling is so creamy that they don't need dip. I wish the cheese was seasoned a bit more, but it's not bad — just a touch bland.

5. Snapps Cream Cheese Pepper Bites

These Cream Cheese  Pepper Bites from Snapps (a portmanteau of snacks and appetizers, as is helpfully shown on the box) are somewhat non-traditional, in that the peppers are chopped and mixed into the filling rather than left whole. While purists may scoff at such hubris, I found that I preferred this style for a few reasons. They're much easier to eat, as you don't have a whole pepper sliding around or falling out of the breading. This also allows the bites to be more uniform in size so that they cook more evenly, since there isn't the naturally different size and shape of each pepper to contend with.

That said, these could use a little bit of improvement. I found that seasoning was lacking in the filling and the breading, so the flavors were somewhat underwhelming, except for the spicy heat from the peppers, which was wonderfully present in every bite. The shape of these makes them easy to eat with your hands, with one narrow tapered end and one wide, rounded end, they're perfect for holding and dipping. This is the smallest box on this list at just five ounces, but also by far the cheapest, making it the best option if you're on a budget.

4. Del Corazón Crispy Poppers

I was excited to try Del Corazón's Crispy Poppers for a change of pace. Instead of a breadcrumb exterior, these are encased in what seem to be wonton wrappers. The shape reminds me of Christmas crackers, giving them a festive feel, and they include bacon in the filling as well as cream cheese and diced jalapeño pepper. The wrappers crisped up nicely in the air fryer, although they did cook somewhat unevenly, with the wrapper ends almost on the edge of being burnt but thankfully not quite. A few poppers split and leaked their filling, but it wasn't a major concern. I would opt for a slightly shorter cooking time if I made these again.

This shape of these is easy to hold and dip, which is great, but you're left with a filling-less nub of wrapper at the end. It's not a dealbreaker or anything, but if you served these at a party, you might find yourself cleaning up a bunch of bits of uneaten crispy dough. The filling itself is tasty, although the jalapeño heat and flavor are a little muted — I think in attempting to add both chunks of bacon and chopped jalapeño pieces, you only get half as much of each as you need for full flavor. I had a few bites that didn't seem to include any peppers at all, and others that had no bacon. That said, bites with every element were deliciously distinctive.

3. Feel Good Foods Crispy Jalapeño Bites

Similar to the Snapps and Del Corazón poppers, Feel Good Foods' Crispy Jalapeño Bites have the peppers chopped and mixed into the cheese filling instead of being left whole. While I found the Snapps bites somewhat underseasoned, Feel Good's versions are absolutely jam-packed with flavor. The breading is nicely spiced and the peppers are plentiful and hot, but it's the cheese that really sings with these snacks. Both cream cheese and Cheddar are used in this filling, so you get a blend of creamy freshness and melty richness in each bite. It makes me wonder why on earth more jalapeño poppers don't contain multiple types of cheese. The result is clearly superior in both filling flavor and texture.

Visually and structurally, these poppers were a pretty big mess, with many exploding in the air fryer, so at first glance, my hopes weren't high. However, they're filled so generously that they still felt overstuffed — even the ones that had almost completely burst. The breading here is coarse, which gives each bite a satisfying crunch, and the filling is so luxuriously rich that no dip is needed. When it comes down to it, I'd rather eat a messy but flavorful jalapeño popper than a boring, tasteless one that's neat as a pin. This is one of the priciest boxes of the bunch, but the flavor is worth it.

2. TGI Fridays Poppers

Of all the classic, cream cheese-stuffed, breadcrumb-ensconced jalapeño poppers that I tried, TGI Fridays Poppers started at the top and stayed there. These are pretty much the textbook definition of jalapeño poppers: Flavorful, abundant cream cheese filling and spicy peppers coated in a golden brown breading. This is also the only offering that included its own dipping sauce, a raspberry-habanero jam-like concoction that I was quite skeptical about, but which turned out to be a delicious complement. The combination made me want to seek out more hot pepper jams to see how well they work with these snacks.

What set these poppers apart from so many others of the same style is that every element was full of flavor. The peppers had heat and intensity, the filling wasn't just creamy and bland, and the breading was well-seasoned with salt and spices. By the time I pulled them from the oven, about half had burst, but the breaches were small and contained so not much filling was lost. It was hard to pick up the habanero flavor in the dipping sauce, which was mainly just sweet and fruity, but that didn't bother me since the heat from jalapeños in the poppers themselves was so pronounced. This is one of the more expensive boxes, but also one of the largest, so it ends up being good value. Whatever happens to the restaurant chain after a recent spate of TGI Fridays closures, let's hope these poppers stay on grocery store shelves.

1. Good & Gather Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Jalapeños

I wasn't expecting a non-breaded jalapeño popper to take the top spot in this ranking, but once I took one bite of Good & Gather's bacon-wrapped stuffed peppers, I completely forgot about all of the others. Despite the fact that I'd already eaten dozens of jalapeño poppers in the space of a few days, I almost finished the whole box in one sitting. These salty and savory, creamy and crispy snacks are addictively easy to eat by hand, and even with the addition of bacon, the lack of breading makes them seem lighter.

It's not just the bacon that pushes these to the top, although that's definitely a major factor — in my oven, the bacon crisped up beautifully, and did an admirable job staying tightly wrapped around each stuffed pepper, holding them together in easy-to-eat little packages. The cream cheese filling was salty, fresh, and flavorful, almost like a feta or chèvre with a nice tang. The peppers themselves are easy to bite through, not rubbery or tough. I tried these with a dip of ranch, but ultimately preferred them without. The texture and flavor balance is perfect on its own.

How we decided on selection and rankings

I visited multiple major grocery chains and smaller markets and picked up every box of frozen jalapeño poppers I could find for this review. There's a variety of styles represented here, from the classic cream cheese and breadcrumbs, to more unusual shapes, wrappers, and fillings. Each style of jalapeño popper was prepared using the instructions on the package. My default preparation method was to use the air fryer, unless the package didn't include air fryer instructions, in which case I cooked them in a conventional oven. If the package came with a dipping sauce, I tried the poppers both with and without it. If there were no included dipping sauces I tasted them with no dip, and then with ranch dressing, which is a common accompaniment.

First and foremost, I judged the jalapeño poppers on flavor. Each element — the interior filling, the jalapeño peppers themselves, and the exterior coating — was tasted individually and then evaluated together. I also took texture into account, and how well they held up during and after the cooking process. Jalapeño poppers can be frustrating to eat if they fall apart or if the temperatures inside and out are uneven, so those aspects were also on my radar. Finally, I considered value, as there's a wide price range for these snacks.