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No Knead Easy Jalapeño Cheddar Bread is an easy beginner recipe for artisan style bread at home with a ton of spicy cheesy flavor!
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At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. My goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
Table of contents
Dutch Oven Jalapeño Cheddar Bread
Fresh, delicious, bakery fresh artisan bread is one of my absolute favorite indulgences.
There is nothing better than a crunchy, salty bread that is bursting with flavor – especially one with a rich and spicy kick like this Easy Jalapeño Cheddar Bread.
This bread is a spinoff of my popular No Knead Herb Bread recipe that is insanely popular – because it is SO easy and delicious! Be sure to check out both recipes, because your family is going to LOVE all the flavor from these at home artisanal breads!
This bread is my new favorite thing to bake on the weekends – you can even prep it the night before and let it rise.
I hope you love it as much as we do!
How To Pre-Make Jalapeno Bread Dough
One of the great parts of making this dutch oven jalapeno cheddar bread is that it is great. You can make this bread the day before a dinner party or big event if you’d like – which cuts down on prep time, and also lets your bread lift even more!
- Wrap the dough up in cellophane tightly before the second rise and immediately refrigerate.
- When ready, preheat oven.
- Pull out the dough, let it come to room temperature and rise, then punch down to roll into a ball and place into preheated dutch oven using the directions from the recipe below.
How To Freeze Bread Dough. Often when I am making no knead bread, I will make a double or even a triple batch, so that I can save some for later. While you already have the equipment and ingredients ready, you may as well make a couple batches! If you won’t be using bread dough within a day or two, you can easily freeze and thaw dough for baking later.
- Wrap the dough up in cellophane tightly before the second rise and immediately freeze.
- Store in freezer for up to four months.
- To thaw, place in refrigerator overnight. Let thaw naturally.
- Place in warm, prepared bowl and place a warm damp towel over to pre-rise. (While dough is cold, it won’t rise, so think of this as a an extra long rise as the dough comes to temperature, then rises.)
- When ready, preheat oven.
- When dough has risen, punch down to roll into a ball and place into preheated dutch oven.
Tips for perfect Jalapeno Cheese Bread
Baking perfect bread every time is really easy with this recipe, but we have found a few tips that really help even more.
- Using something other than a dutch oven. I’ve had a few people ask what they can use if they do not have a dutch oven. Since this bread is no-knead, it’s really relying on the heat of a very hot dutch oven to help make it light, fluffy, and airy (instead of a gummy, dense bread). Cast irons help to evenly heat and hold heat, so your bread can bake quickly, and let the crumb lift for springy, delicious home baked bread with a crispy crust.
- If you don’t have a dutch oven, you could try this in another heavy pot with a lid, but I really think for the texture to be perfect, it does need the extra heat.
- What Dutch Oven to Bake Bread In. I’ve used traditional and ceramic coated dutch ovens, and both work beautifully.
- Preheat dutch oven: For super crispy crust and light, airy bread, I prefer thoroughly preheating my dutch oven in the oven while bread rises.
- Bake on parchment paper: For super easy to remove bread, I bake on a sheet of parchment paper. I use a long strip as a sort of “sling” for the dough, not to protect from sticking to the pan – because it makes it super easy to drop into a preheated dutch oven, and remove when bread is done, without burning fingers. This is totally optional, but it really helps me.
- Top with cheese: I like to shred a little cheese on top and be sure to place a jalapeno or two on top before baking for extra pretty bread.
- Dust lightly with flour before baking. This doesn’t only help your bread not stick to the pan, but it gives a lovely artisan bakery look! You can score the top of your bread, too, for a pretty design.
What to serve with this Halapeno Cheese Bread Recipe
If youre looking for a delicious dish to serve this bread with, be sure to check out our Easy Bread Dip, tasty and spicy Air Fried Nandos Chicken Wings, Bacon Wrapped Cheddar and Garlic Jalapeno Poppers, or some Easy Bacon Butter Spread!
For more of our delicious appetizers, find some of our favorites below:
Try these bread recipes next:
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Easy Jalapeno Cheddar Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
- 600 grams AP flour, about 4 cups, lightly packed and leveled off
- 2 cups water, 473.18mL lukewarm water
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- 1 yeast, 7g, 2 1/4 teaspoons
- 2 tbsp jalapeno rings, drained of excess liquid and patted dry
- 2 cups cheddar cheese, sharp , shredded
Instructions
- In a small bowl, add water and stir yeast packet in (make sure water is warm, but not too hot – if it is too cold or too hot it will not bloom properly).
- Let yeast bloom for about 5 minutes – it will have a light foam on it.
- In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients with a spoon.
- Make a small well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and when yeast is proofed, slowly pour into dry ingredients.
- Mix by hand (either with your hands, or a spoon).
- The dough will turn begin to come together and pull away from the bowl.
- If the dough is too sticky, add more flour in small increments, about 1 tablespoon at a time. If the dough is too dry, add more water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Once the dough has come together, cover it and let it rise until it doubles in size (about 1.5 to 2 hours).
- Uncover the dough and give it a few pokes with your finger.
- If the dough has risen correctly, it should indent under the pressure of your fingers and slowly deflate.
- Gently scoop up the dough and make sure to remove it from the sides of the bowl (you want it to fully rise again, if it is still stuck to the sides of the bowl in parts, it won’t.)
- Fold in jalapenos (make sure you pat them dry, excess liquid will make the dough watery and messy- it should stay nonstick. If it becomes too watery, add more flour by the teaspoon until bread is not sticky to the touch.)
- Place back in bowl, cover, and allow the dough to continue to rise for another 1.5-2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees (230 degrees C, gas mark 8) and add dutch oven to it, (you want it to be incredibly hot).
- Punch down dough.
- Generously flour a sheet of parchment paper; transfer dough to parchment and, with floured hands, shape into a ball.
- Place dough on parchment paper and sprinkle top lightly with flour.
- Quickly fold in cheese, making sure to incorporate through the dough.
- Top with a sheet of plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes.
- Remove Dutch oven from oven.
- Uncover dough and carefully transfer to Dutch oven, with or without parchment paper beneath (if bottom of Dutch oven is not coated with enamel, keep parchment paper beneath dough- I always use parchment paper because it is just the easiest and I never have to worry about anything sticking).
- Cover Dutch oven with lid and return to oven.
- Bake bread 45 minutes covered, then another 10 to 15 minutes uncovered until dough is baked through and golden brown on top.
- Cool slightly before slicing.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I made this recipe today and it came out fantastic! The directions were very easy to follow, but I still managed to misread the step where the jalapeños get folded in, I added the cheese as well. It wasn’t until after the second rise when I discovered what I did. Within the two cups of shredded cheese I included half in chunks of cheese. This will be my go to recipe going forward
So glad you loved it!
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