Pork Empanada Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should empanadas be baked or fried? ›

Both cooking methods produce delicious empanadas. If you want a healthier merienda, bake them in the oven. If you're working with less time, frying them is the way to go. Try both and ask your loved ones to vote on their favorite.

Argentine empanadas with beef, cheese, or chicken. Chilean empanadas with beef, cheese, or seafood. Mexican empanadas with spicy beef, potato, or pumpkin.

Empanadas are crescent-shaped, savory pastries made of dough and filled with a variety of ingredients. Empanada fillings can include anything from ground or shredded beef, chicken, pork, cheese, or vegetables, seasoned vibrantly, then baked to perfection.

There's not a lot of difference — chief one being that you use ice water with empanada dough, and hot water for tortillas. Another difference is the flour. It is a lot less important to use a soft wheat flour like Sonoran or Lily flour for empanadas than it is for flour tortillas. Any all-purpose flour will work.

The best way to keep fried foods crispy? Just place them on a cooling rack set over a baking sheet. If you're frying multiple batches, throw the whole setup into a low oven to keep everything warm as you keep frying and adding to the rack.

It's quite simple -- they're very portable, easy to make, and can be a great way to use up leftovers. And, of course, they don't have to be meaty. Empanadas are the traditional Latin version of the hot pocket (Hot Pockets, natch, are the traditional American version).

What Can You Substitute for Empanada Dough? If you're looking for a shortcut, store-bought pie dough can be used to make empanadas. You may need to roll the dough out slightly thinner—it will produce a flakier result than typical empanada dough and is better for baking than frying.

The Spanish recipe was made with bread dough, the Mexican recipe with corn masa dough. This is where Mexican empanada history takes over. Each region in Mexico has their own version of the empanada.

The most iconic variety being the oven-baked empanada de pino, which is filled with ground beef, minced onion, half or a quarter of a hard-boiled egg, and a single unpitted black olive. Empanadas in Chile are eaten year-round and are either oven-baked or deep-fried; the latter is a popular street food.

And while we love traditional empanadas, fussy pastry dough is a lot to tackle on a busy weeknight. Here, we use our favorite dough hack, ready-made pizza dough, for a quick-ready-to-roll crust. It's crisp and tender and works perfectly to enclose the grass-fed ground beef, bell pepper, and golden raisin filling.

Can you buy dough for empanadas? ›

Here's a delicious, flaky wrapper that's perfect for capturing all your favorite flavors: GOYA® Empanada Dough. Our line of ready-to-use flour dough discs are the #1 ingredient for preparing a wide variety of empanadas, a favorite in Latin America and around the world.

Pizza dough and empanada dough are different for one significant reason: Pizza dough uses yeast to allow it to rise, whereas empanada dough does not. Empanadas don't require resting time or lots of kneading. In fact, the less you work the dough, the better, as it leaves the pastry tender and flaky.

These are a few of the known names: Meat Pies (American) Empanadas (Latin/Spanish) Pastelillos (Latin/Spanish)

Ingredients in Empanada dough

Flour – Just plain / all purpose flour. Butter – cold, cut into cubes so it's easy to blitz into fine crumbs in the flour. Tiny little bits of butter throughout the pastry is what makes it beautifully flaky! Egg – Eggs are not usually included in traditional shortcrust pastry.

Oil for frying (vegetable, canola, or peanut oil) Water (for sealing the empanadas)

Famous for their flavorful filling, these Argentinean-style empanadas are made with ground beef perfectly seasoned with GOYA® Adobo All-Purpose Seasoning with Pepper, garlic, raisins, onions, eggs, and chopped olives. Wrap the mixture in GOYA® Empanada Dough-Puff Pastry for Baking and bake. They'll be a total hit!

Empanadas usually are served hot and blistered from the deep fryer, but home cooks will be glad that these baked healthier handpies offer similar pleasures without a trip into a vat of bubbling oil. The simple dough, similar to pie crust, comes together in a jiffy in the food processor.

As you fold your empanadas they may become warm in the heat of your kitchen, so be sure they are cold before baking or frying. Chilling both the filling and the dough will keep the liquid inside where it belongs and keep the edge sealed, preventing bursting and that dreaded soggy bottom.

Remove the empanadas to a paper-towel-lined baking sheet to cool and drain. (Also, hold each empanada above the oil for a few moments to allow excess oil to run off and out of the empanada before moving them to the baking sheet.)