an overhead shot of a loaf of bread on a white towel with floral embroidery

A close up of the crust of a golden brown, flour-dusted loaf of cheddar-jalapeno no-knead bread. It's loosely wrapped in a white kitchen towel with a red stripe and is on a marble countertop.

an overhead shot of a loaf of cheddar jalapeno bread on a wire cooling rack — three different loaves of no-knead cheddar-jalapeno bread

This easy-to-make cheddar-jalapeno no-knead bread relies on time to develop gluten, strength, and flavor. It bakes up with a crunchy, floury crust that cracks open unpredictably inside of a Dutch oven.

When I have minimal time to invest in hands-on baking but want a delicious loaf of airy, moist bread with a nice crunchy crust, I turn to my favorite no-knead recipes. Yes, that’s right: NO-KNEAD. No-knead bread is exactly what it sounds like. Bread dough that requires no kneading to develop gluten and flavor. No folding, no punching down, nothing. Just stir the ingredients together to form a shaggy dough and let it sit at room temp for 18 hours. Once it’s risen, you dump it out onto a lightly floured surface, shape it into a rough oval as best you can, and bake it in a Dutch oven.

This recipe, which I developed using Girl Versus Dough’s No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread recipe as a base, came about because I was desperate to find new ways to use up some of the four-dozen-plus jalapeños we grew last year. I also took inspiration from a cheesy (asiago, I think?), peppery bread I had at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill in Las Vegas, which was amaaaaazing slathered in butter. I don’t usually like hot peppers (as you know from the hot sauce post), but removing the seeds and ribs and baking them in the bread dough mellows the heat dramatically, leaving behind just the rich jalapeño flavor.

The Girl Versus Dough recipe is already a high-hydration dough (you’ll remember I talked about hydration in the bagel post) with a hydration level of 98%. Because the cheese and the peppers add liquid to the dough, I increased the amount of flour just a touch to make it a 90% hydration dough, so it’s not completely impossible to work with. (You’re welcome).

That said, this will likely still be a bit of a challenge the first few times you try it. BUT!!! This is not meant to be a tightly controlled dough, so that looseness and stickiness is actually just fine. A little bit of variety is what will make your cheddar-jalapeno no-knead bread crack open — like a dragon egg — in so many delightful and unpredictable ways while it bakes.

Four slices of cheddar-jalapeno bread with nice big air pockets sit on a small wooden cutting board on the left side of the photo. Two sprigs of rosemary are behind the cutting board. In the top center-right of the photo is the other half of the loaf, sitting on a white towel with a red stripe. In the bottom right of photo is a whole jalapeno and three slices of cheddar cheese.

how to make cheddar-jalapeno no-knead bread

Mix all your ingredients together in a bowl. That’s it. You’re done.

A close up showing the freshly mixed cheddar-jalapeno no-knead dough inside of a glass bowl, Through the glass wall of the bowl you can see a silver kitchen scale.

Of course, there are a few things you can do to make it just a little easier on yourself. Mix your dry ingredients together first: Flour, salt, and yeast. Then, add your cheese, pepper, and rosemary and toss them in the dry ingredients before you add the water. (I don’t know if it actually makes a difference, but I know when you make cakes you can toss berries in flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom, so I like to do this here too, just in case.)

Your last step is to add the water. Use a silicone spatula, dough whisk, or a plastic bowl scraper to mix the dough together until all the flour and water are incorporated. Remember, this is a 90% hydration dough. It’s supposed to be a shaggy, messy dough. It should be sticky to the touch and impossible to knead (because it doesn’t need kneading).

Cover the bowl and let it rise at room temperature for 18 hours.

for the visual learners

Mix your dry ingredients. Flour, salt, and yeast.

Chop or grate your cheddar cheese into pieces 1/4” or smaller. Add to the flour mixture.

Remove the seeds and ribs from a jalapeño and slice or dice to your desired size. Add to the flour.

Finely mince the leaves from two sprigs of rosemary. Add to the flour mixture.

Measure out your water and add it to the dry ingredients. Use a bowl scraper to combine.

You should have a shaggy, loose dough. Cover and let rest for 18 hours.

18 hours later the dough will have doubled in size, have a flat top, and visible bubbles.

Use a bowl scraper to gently release dough from bowl onto floured parchment paper.

Use wet or floured hands to fold the edges of the dough over the center to make an oval shape.

Lightly dust the outside with flour.

Transfer the loaf into a Dutch oven that’s been preheating at 450F for at least 30 mins. Cover.

Bake 45 mins covered, then 10-15 mins uncovered.

When it’s a deep golden brown color, it’s done! Remove from the oven.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before slicing open.

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Does it really need to rise for 18 hours?

Yes — and no. Most no-knead recipes say you can shape and bake the dough anywhere from 8 to 18 hours after you mix it. (Some recipes you can leave the dough in the fridge for up to 7 days!) But, in my experience, at 8 hours, the gluten hasn’t developed enough strength for you to effectively shape the dough. It’ll be a loose, wet, sticky pile that’s nearly impossible to handle.

If you wait the full 18 hours it will still feel like a loose wet pile, but it’ll be so much easier to work with. Note that I did not say easy to work with. Just easier. But again, the dough isn’t meant to be easy to handle — that looseness and stickiness is part of what makes it crack open beautifully in the oven.

a few quick no-knead notes

Use wet hands and wet your bowl scraper to gently transfer the risen dough to a floured sheet of parchment paper before shaping it. If you use flour on your hands the dough will stick to the flour.

If you have an oval dutch oven: arrange the parchment paper so its in a diamond shape, with a corner of the paper towards your body. The oval shape of the dough should end up with the long side facing you, parallel to the edge of the counter. If you have a round dutch oven, just try to get your dough in the middle of the parchment paper.

To shape the dough you can use floured hands OR slightly wet hands. Both will help keep the dough from sticking to you. Feel out the dough and try one method. If it doesn’t work, try the other. Figure out what approach works best for you. Too much flour will prevent the dough from sticking to itself as you fold, which will make it harder to shape. So don’t go overboard with the flour here. That said, you may need to use the bowl scraper to push flour under the edges of the dough to make it easier to lift off the paper.

The cheddar and jalapeno pieces will try to push themselves out of the dough as you fold it. Just push them back in. If they fall out completely, you can put them in the center of the dough and fold more dough over them. But it’s okay if some pieces are hanging out of the dough. Don’t sweat it.

A side-view of the shaped loaf of cheddar-jalapeno no-knead dough sitting on a square of well-floured parchment paper. Squares of cheddar and pieces of jalapeno are pushing their way through the outer skin of the dough. In the background is a small bowl of flour for dusting.

Do you need to use cheddar and jalapeño?

Okay, you caught me. You can use any pepper or cheese combination you want. Green pepper, red pepper, purple pepper, yellow pepper, hot pepper, mild pepper. Any pepper will work. I almost always have some sort of hot pepper in the kitchen so I usually just grab whatever I have. When it comes to cheese, I’ve done this with thin-sliced muenster cheese from the deli, rough-torn chunks of fresh mozzarella, finely grated asiago, shredded parmesan, cubed cotswold, and more.

Try to stick to hard cheeses (cheddar, parmesan, asiago, swiss, etc.) rather than soft cheeses (brie, goat cheese, etc.) so that the cheese doesn’t add too much liquid to the dough when it melts during baking. As for cheddar, I recommend sticking to sweet, mild, or medium sharpness. If you go sharp or extra sharp, the cheddar flavor will overpower every bite.

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