Jalapeno Cheddar Sourdough Bread
A jalapeno cheddar sourdough bread recipe that’s loaded with flavor. A beautiful crust, soft interior, and sharp cheese and spicy peppers combine for a loaf you won’t forget.
This is one of our favorite sourdough recipes of all time and one of the most popular on my blog. You won’t be disappointed ❤️.
(If you love the idea of a sourdough bread with mix-ins, try lemon zest and blueberry sourdough too!)
Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese Sourdough Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 cups bread flour 450 grams/ 15.85 ounces
- 1 ⅓ cups lukewarm water 300 grams/ 10.6 ounces
- ¾ cup mature well fed sourdough starter (165 grams/ 5.85 ounces)
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
- ⅓ cup diced jalapenos fresh or pickled (about 2 whole)
- 1 cup diced sharp cheddar
Instructions
- Mix ingredients other than salt, peppers, and cheese. Combine the flour, water, sugar, and starter in a large bowl and stir. Use your hands to incorporate any dry bits.
- Rest. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Add salt, jalapenos, and cheddar. After the rest period, add the salt, cheddar cheese, and jalapenos and knead for a minute or two until everything is thoroughly mixed in.
- Bulk rise. Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place for three hours, reshaping the dough into a ball once per hour. To reshape, pull from the outside in to reform a ball. You can do this right in the bowl.
- Overnight proof. Heavily dust a banneton with rice flour. When it is time to shape the dough the third time, place the loaf into the banneton and cover it with plastic wrap. Allow to proof overnight in the fridge.
- Prep for baking. In the morning, preheat oven to 450℉ with rack in the center. (You can preheat the Dutch oven in there if you'd like.) Remove dough from fridge and turn it out onto a sheet or parchment paper, trying to have it land in the center. Slash the top with a lame or very sharp knife.
- Place in Dutch oven and bake. Place the parchment paper and dough into a lidded Dutch Oven and put the lid back on top. Bake for a total of 55 minutes: 25 minutes covered, 25 minutes uncovered, and then remove from the Dutch Oven and bake directly on the rack for 5 minutes to brown the crust. Bread should be 200-210 internally when it is done.
- Cool and serve. Remove from Dutch Oven and remove parchment paper. Allow to cool on a wire rack 3 to 4 hours before slicing. Will keep at room temperature, tightly wrapped, for a few days.
Video
Notes
Table of contents
The eternal problem with sourdough bread is that your starter has to be fed and discarded all the time and you are forced to bake bread constantly. And sometimes…. your favorite recipes get a little… boring.
And the antidote to boring bread? Adding cheddar cheese and jalapenos!
The best part of this bread is that its just as easy as to make as regular artisan sourdough bread. The cheese and jalapenos don’t do anything to hurt the rise of the bread or anything like that. If you have a made successful loaf of sourdough bread, this recipe is going to turn out great.
Helpful tools and special ingredients
Bob’s Red Mill Sweet White Rice Flour, 24 OzCrock-Pot Artisan Round Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven, 5-Quart, Aqua(10 x 6 x 3.5 inch) Oval Bread Banneton Proofing Basket & Liner SUGUS HOUSE Brotform Dough Rising Rattan Handmade rattan bowl – Perfect For Artisan
- A kitchen scale. This is helpful any bread baking, but almost essential for sourdough. It is more accurate, less messy, and totally worth the cost.
- Bread flour! Don’t be tempted to substitute all purpose flour. Bread flour will give a chewy, crusty loaf and the hydration of this recipe is calculated using bread flour. If you can’t find it at your grocery store, you can order it online.
- A Dutch Oven with a tight fitting lid. This helps create a mini oven and lets the load bake in a steamy environment, which helps it rise. If you don’t have a Dutch Oven, you can simply preheat a rimming baking sheet on a lower rack and pour a cup of water on it to create steam.
- A proofing basket with a cloth liner. This will help your loaf keep its shape as it proofs overnight in the fridge. If you have a bowl that’s the right shape, you can line it with a tea towel. But the proofing baskets are pretty!
- Rice flour. This makes a HUGE difference if you are having trouble with your loaf sticking to the proofing basket.
Step-by-step jalapeno cheddar sourdough
We begin with an autolyse stage. Don’t be alarmed. It just means to stir the bread flour, water, starter, and sugar together and let them sit in a bowl. This is not a very high-hydration recipe, so it might look a little rough and somewhat dry. Just use your hands to combine everything into one mass. Cover it with a clean tea towel and let them rest at room temperature for thirty minutes.
Once the dough has rested, it’s time to add in the salt, cheddar, and jalapeno. Dump it right on top of the dough and knead it in. You’ll want to knead by hand for a few minutes to make sure that everything gets incorporated well.
Now that the mix ins are worked in well, it’s time to let the dough rise. Put it in a clean, lightly oiled bowl and cover it with greased plastic or a damp tea towel.
The first rise will take about three to four hours at room temperature. But every hour during this rise, you will need to reshape the dough back into a ball. When the next hour passes, the dough will have relaxed again into the shape of the bowl, like this:
You want to build up structure in the dough and fold it back up like this:
After three folds, you can move on the next stage. It’s time for the second proof, which is a cold proof in the fridge, overnight.
Place the ball of dough into a well-floured proofing basket and cover it with plastic wrap. Pop it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, it should look like this:
In the morning, take the dough out of the fridge and preheat your oven to 450 degrees with a rack in the middle.
Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and slash with a lame. One slash down the middle is fine, or you can get fancy!
Place the paper and the dough into a Dutch Oven with a lid. Bake for 25 minutes with the lid on, 25 minutes with the lid off. Then (this is optional), remove the loaf from the Dutch Oven and the paper and bake directly on the oven rack for five more minutes. This helps to brown and crisp the crust all over.
Let cool for at least 3 hours, and slice and serve. Now since this is a jalapeño cheddar sourdough with tons of flavor, I like it best with something plain, like making a turkey sandwich or serving alongside a roast chicken. But of course, you can serve it however you like.
serving ideas:
This is surprisingly versatile. Really!
- Try making a sandwich with a few pieces of turkey and a thin layer of cream cheese.
- This bread is perfect with creamy tomato soup.
Want more bread recipes?
- Dutch ovens make the best, crusty round loaves. Check out my favorite Dutch Oven bread recipes here.
- Jalapeno cheddar sourdough is not an everyday bread but these sourdough rolls are something you will always want on hand in your kitchen.
- And if your sourdough starter is taking over your life, don’t forget you can use your sourdough discard for all kinds of things
This a delightful combination of tangy, spicy, and cheesy flavors. Whether enjoyed with a warm meal or as a standalone snack, it’s sure to be a hit. I hope you love it ❤️.
By Katie Shaw
Katie lives in Virginia with her husband, three daughters, a chocolate lab, and over thirty chickens. She loves creating simple tutorials for sourdough, bread, and soap. Her recipes, articles, and YouTube videos reach millions of people per year.