Beef Empanadas are perfect for your parties or dinner table. These little meat pockets appeal to all ages with their juicy filling and flaky crust. Make your own crust or if you are in a hurry like me, use ready-made pie crust which makes these Empanadas a super easy one. Feel free to use puff pastry or to fill them with chicken, cheese, or rice and beans for a vegetarian version.
Beef empanadas
Ground beef empanadas or fatayer, are flaky and crusty turnovers with juicy flavorful ground beef filling. That will sure please everyone around your table. Perfect as an appetizer/ lunch or mid-day snack. Delicious by all means!
Whether you call them empanadas, fatayer, turnovers, or whatever, these are irresistible pastry pockets world wide. Fill them with whatever filling you like, chicken, shredded meat, cheese or vegetables.
Today I've filled mine with a succulent ground meat that my mom used to make to fill her fatayer. So it is a filling with a middle eastern twist.
What can I substitute for empanada dough?
You can use pie crust as I've done here and also you might consider puff pastry, biscuit dough and sometimes even crescent rolls. Worth noting that this is not an authentic empanadas recipe of course and empanada dough is not as flaky as the pie crust. Not traditional empanadas, of course, but still a perfectly tasty bite.
What can I make with empanadas?
Empanadas come in a variety of fillings, sweet or savory. It can be served with a number of dips and sauces like Chipotle sauce, avocado sauce, salsa and chimichurri sauce.
Where are empanadas most popular?
Empanadas are wildly popular throughout Latin and South America. It is said to have originated in Spain though. Source.
How to make beef empanadas?
We'll first prepare our filling:
- In a skillet saute onion and garlic then add ground meat and cook until no longer pink, drain fat.
- Add loads of spices, cilantro and green onions.
- Then comes the tomato sauce which gives this filling a tart and irresistible taste.
- Unroll the pie dough and cut circles to make 12 out of each pie crust.
- Fill, seal edges with some water and press with a fork.
- Brush with egg and bake.
- Let it cool down a bit then serve.
Variations of empanadas
Everyone has his/her own way of making empanadas. Not only people use different dough(s) they also stuff their empanadas differently. When it comes to filling, the sky is the limit. You can use traditional fillings or get creative. Combine any flavors, herbs, ingredients you like or have at home. Empanadas can be filled with beef and potato, chicken, mushroom, beans, cheese, pizza, seafood, fruit pie filling, chocolate, strawberry cheesecake… etc.
Other baked pockets we love:
I am also keeping this caprese empanada recipe by Layla handy to try soon.
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Beef Empanadas
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Beef empanadas
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons oil.
- 1 small onion diced.
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 1 lb ground beef.
- 3/4 cup chopped green onion from 4 medium ones.
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped Cilantro.
- 2 Tablespoon smoked paprika.
- 1/2 Tablespoon ground cumin.
- 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.
- Salt to taste
- 1 cup tomato sauce.
- 1 box refrigerated pie crusts.
Instructions
- In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté onion and garlic in oil. Add beef and cook until no longer pink.
- Drain the fat then return to stove top.
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Add spices, green onion, parsley, cilantro and tomato sauce. Stir to combine and cook for about 5 minutes.
- On a lightly floured surface, unroll one pie crust.
- Using a cookie cutter, cut out rounds of the crust.
- Re-roll dough and cut rounds, you'll be able to get about 12 circles *.
- Put about 1 Tablespoon of the meat mixture in the center of each circle.
- Brush the edges of the circle with water then fold over the filling.
- Seal edges by pressing with a fork.
- Repeat with the other pie crust.
- Place on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper and sprayed with oil.
- Beat an egg with a dash of ground black pepper.Brush top lightly with the beaten egg.
- Bake for 11-14 minutes until nicely browned on top.
- Let it cool down before serving.
This has been my go to recipe for this week. I've made a big batch over the weekend and now we are consuming them as lunch and dinner. Thank you.