Easy Puff Pastry Recipe: Smoked Salmon And Jalapeño Egg Cups

Did you read my previous posts about how I limited the provisioning during my last trip to Little House in the Rockies and ratcheted up the kitchen creativity? This is the last of 4 posts on this approach, which yielded 3 new documented recipes and one simple salad suggestion. And a lot of fun cooking solo! That’s me in the Little House kitchen, enjoying my R&R and taking a rare selfie to show my son that his cast-off sweater from junior high was still in my rotation.

On the night I developed the recipe I’m sharing here, I had some cold-smoked salmon, jalapeño whipped cheese spread and eggs to work with, and I found some puff pastry in the freezer. It was pretty clear that a muffin tin filled with this yummy goodness would be one of my test kitchen experiments.

Recipe: Smoked Salmon and Jalapeño Puff Pastry Egg Cups

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• ½ cup milk or substitute, such as almond or oat milk
• ½ cup whipped cheese spread, preferably jalapeño-flavored, such as Alouette
• ¼ tsp each: salt, cayenne, cumin, garlic powder, dried thyme
• ¼ cup minced red onion
• ¼ cup minced fresh or pickled jalapeños
• 2 oz. cold-smoked salmon, chopped
• 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
• Cooking spray
• Optional pre-baking garnish
  • 6 thin slices of fresh jalapeño
  • 1 grape tomato, chopped
• Optional post-baking garnishes or ‘alongsides’
  • Small handful of arugula
  • Thinly sliced cucumber
  • Diced jalapeño and/or red onion
  • Diced grape tomato

Cooking Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°. In a small bowl, whisk 3 eggs, add milk and ¼ tsp each salt, cayenne, cumin, garlic powder and dried thyme and whisk again. Stir in ½ cup whipped cheese spread, ¼ cup red onion, ¼ cup jalapeños and 2 oz. cold-smoked salmon until well mixed, and set aside.

Spray a deep muffin tin (see note) liberally with cooking spray. Cut the thawed puff pastry into six pieces, which will be rectangular. Press the pieces into the muffin tin. Using a small ladle, distribute the egg mixture evenly across the muffin tin cups. Optionally, top each with one thin slice of jalapeño and a few bits of diced tomato. Bake for about 23 minutes, or until the eggs are set and the pastry has puffed and turned golden brown. Remove from the muffin tins to a rack to cool slightly before serving.

Note:

The muffin tin I have at Little House is deep, far deeper than the regular ones I have at Glover Gardens. if you are using normal-sized muffin tins, you should cut your puff pastry into 8 pieces and use two muffin tins – all six cups in the first one and two cups in the second.

Join Me in the Little House in the Rockies Kitchen

I always assemble everything first, and do the prep (see RAP in the Kitchen for Recipe Success).

Let’s Eat!

When I created this recipe, it was for the dinner hour, even though I knew this was destined to be a brunch dish. No worries: brunch for dinner is a winner! Just a simple salad on the side was all this rich and savory puff pastry filled with pillowy-soft and piquant egg-salmon custard needed.

A Beautiful Dish on the Plate

The next day, I had it for brunch, alongside a fruit salad which was simply chopped fresh peaches and green apple tossed with Zippy Autumn spice mix. Delicious!

Before serving myself at brunch, I took a few photos of the 5 remaining egg cups. This one is my fave.

On my last morning, I served myself another of these delicious egg cups on a paper plate because I had already washed the dishes, but it was still a beautiful plate of food—and a beautiful view of the mountaintop from the front porch.

There’s something innately satisfying about a flavorful eggy custard nestled within pastry. This dish is going into my standard brunch rotation.

Limited Provisions at Little House in the Rockies Series Recap

Here are the other posts based on the recipes I created during my June, 2025 solo trip to Little House in the Rockies. The ingredients are the same, but they were combined in different ways.

I’m really happy with my recipe development spree and plan to do it again. Do you have any suggestions or requests?

© 2025, Glover Gardens