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These Beef Empanadas are Argentine-style empanadas. They are stuffed with a picadillo beef mixture, brushed with egg washed and baked. These are so delicious and savory. I love making a big batch and freezing some for later.
Let’s talk about these baked Beef Empanadas! In the world of empanada land, I would say that these are more similar to Argentina-style empanadas. The dough is flakey and baked, not fried. I love this dough because while it’s flakey, it’s not exactly like pie dough. It’s more toothsome than that.
I adore Latin food of all kinds. I love everything from Ropa Vieja, Pollo a la Criolla to Pupusas. And give me all the strawberry margaritas and cheladas.
What are Empanadas?
They derive from the Spanish word “empanar” which means to envelope or wrap something. Makes sense because empanadas are wrapped over some sort of filling mixture. Empanadas are either baked or fried. The one you see is obviously the baked version that is more popular in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico and other parts of the Caribbean and South America. Colombians famously deep fry them.
How to Make Empanada Dough
Empanada dough is very similar to my homemade pie dough except this has more a toothsome and crumbly texture versus flakey and buttery. Here’s how I make mine:
- Mix the dry ingredients together. There is all-purpose flour and salt.
- Grate in the cold butter. Just like my usual pie dough, I like to grate in the butter and mix it throughout the dry ingredients.
- Whisk the water and egg together. Egg makes this dough a bit more toothsome and soft. I like it versus just butter and water.
- Pour the water/egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until it’s mostly combined.
- Dump it out onto your work surface.
- Knead the dough together until it forms a ball.
- Wrap it in plastic wrap. And let it rest in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.
How to Make Filling for Beef Empanadas!
The fillings for empanadas can vary SO much. This will depend on the country, the village, the family; truly the options are endless. I even went to a Super Bowl party last year and there were empanadas there that were In-n-Out inspired. So get creative. I like to keep it simple so here’s what I did.
Picadillo. In Spanish this literally means “picado” which means all chopped up. The picadillo in this instance has the following:
- Ground beef
- Spices
- Onions
- Red Bell Pepper
- Olives
- Tomato paste
How to Assemble the Beef Empanadas
- Roll out the dough.
- Using a 6-inch cookie cutter OR using a bowl as a guide and a knife, cut out circles.
- Add a few teaspoons of filling to each circle of dough.
- Fold it over and crimp the sides.
- Transfer them to a baking sheet.
- Place in the freezer to chill for 15 minutes.
- Then bake!
I like to serve them with salsa. And love to eat them piping hot!
Tips and Tricks
Chill Your Pie Dough Overnight. This will result in a more pliable and pie dough that’s easier to work with.
Prep Your Filling the Night Before. This recipe can be a bit labor-intensive so split up the work in two days. The day before you can prep your crust and your filling.
Recipe FAQs
Colombians deep fry their empanadas and they are SO amazing. Other countries like Argentina, Spain and Portugal like to bake them.
Make the dough, assemble them and place them (without baking them) on a baking sheet. Transfer them to the freezer for 15 minutes. Then remove them from the baking sheet and transfer them in a freezer-safe bag or container. Freeze up to three months. Bake from frozen and bake for an additional 3-5 minutes, if needed.
More Latin-Inspired Recipes You’ll Love
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Baked Empanadas Recipe
Ingredients
Empanada Dough:
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 1 large egg
Empanada Filling:
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 pound ground beef
- Kosher salt
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
- 5 green olives, minced
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon ground paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- Kosher salt to taste
For Assembly:
- 1 large egg, whisked with 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
To Make the Dough:
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Using a box grater, grate the cold butter atop the flour mixture. Working quickly, and using your hands, break the butter bits into the flour until they're evenly distributed and resemble the size of small peas.
- In a measuring cup, measure out the water and whisk in the egg. Pour the liquid into the flour; the mixture will be shaggy at this point. From here, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until the dough comes together (I usually need to about 1 more tablespoons). Flour your counter and dump the dough onto it. Knead a few times more until it comes together. Form into a disc. Wrap the disc in plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour, ideally overnight.
To Make the Filling:
- In a medium saucepan, set over medium heat, add the olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the ground beef. Break up the ground beef using a wooden spoon. Sprinkle with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Cook the meat until mostly browned. Add the diced onion, red bell pepper and garlic. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the green olives, tomato paste, cumin, paprika, crushed red pepper and a few pinches of salt. Give it a good mix and cook about 5 minutes more, stirring occasionally. If the mixture seems a bit dry (this will depend on how much fat your ground beef has), add a splash of water.
To Assemble the Empanadas:
- Roll out the disc of dough into a 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 6-inch round cutter (or you could use a bowl and trace out circles with a sharp paring knife), cut out as many circles as you can. Re-roll the scraps and cut out a few more.
- Transfer the rounds to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Lightly brush each dough round with egg wash. Add a tablespoon of the meat filling to one side of the circle of dough; fold the dough over, creating a half-moon shape. Using the tines of a fork, seal the empanada’s seam together by pressing them together. Repeat until you’ve worked through all of the empanadas.
- Transfer the baking sheet of empanadas to the freezer to chill for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Brush the empanadas with egg wash and using a knife, pierce the top to allow steam to escape. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Eat immediately or room temperature. Serve with salsa or chimichurri.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I made these for my family for dinner the other night and we loved them! We wished we had made a double batch they were so tasty! I made a vegetarian filling and subbed the beef in the recipe for black beans for my sister and I. My parents loved the original beef filling though. The dough was great too
Adriana — I’m from the food section of the Bay Area News Group, which includes the San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times. We’d like your permission to run this recipe for a cover story on empanadas running April 4 in print and March 29 online. I emailed you earlier this week but haven’t heard back and my deadline is today. If I have your permission, can you please email me the photograph to go with it? Thank you.
Best,
Jessica
Hi Jessica, I’m going to decline. I like the recipe to live here only. Thanks.
This recipe worked out great for me. I loosely followed the filling recipe, adding other seasonings and using lean ground turkey instead of beef. I always have problems making dough but this came together perfectly for me. I used my stand mixer and the additional 1 Tbsp of water. Very easy to hand knead and to roll out after chilling overnight. This will be one of my go-to dough recipes from now on. Thank you!
These were so easy and absolutely delicious!! The crust was especially flaky and decadent. I actually forgot to place them in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking and still thought they came out perfectly. But I’m going to make up another batch of dough today to use up my leftover filling, so I’ll do it correctly this time and compare the results 🙂 Thank you for sharing your recipe!
These look delicious! Do you think you can wrap and freeze them raw, then do the egg wash and pop them in the oven when I’m ready to bake them? Trying to figure out if I can make these a couple days ahead of when I need them.
yes absolutely! I think that’ll work great.
I really want to make these! can you tell me how many Grams of butter please ?
I made these for dinner the other night and they were incredible! I had never made empanadas before and was a bit nervous to attempt them – but this recipe was so easy to follow. I did find that I needed 2-3 more T. water than the recipe notes predict in order to for the dough to come together. Other than that, no issues! Thanks for this recipe. It’ll now be in regular rotation at my house 🙂
This is such amazing news–love hearing this! 🙂
What kind of sides can go with the empanadas ?
You can serve it with salsa!
I’ve made these amazing empanadas several times now. I didn’t have fresh red peppers so I used some marinated roasted red peppers strips I had on hand. my husband is Argentine and he swears that you need chopped boiled eggs in there too. so I added 3, but I doubled your original recipe–cuz like that I said, these are just the best. I also used frozen Goya empanadas wrappers cuz I made like 20 of these things. And lastly I found a clever little tool to make filling and sealing the empanadas. I’ll try to post it, but if it doesn’t work you can find the set of 3 sizes on Amazon.
Thank you very much! Your blog is always full of great idea. They are really helpful