Baked Cheese and Chorizo Empanadas

These empanadas de chorizo are baked rather than fried and this Argentinian specialty takes a Tex-Mex spin with a filling of chorizo, cheese, and roasted chile peppers. Adding cream cheese to empanada dough allows for elasticity and produces tender and flaky results. Give these chorizo empanadas a try.

About this Recipe and Why it Works

Making empanadas is really not as hard as it looks.

What are empanadas? Empanadas are crescent shaped pastries filled with a variety of ingredients. Empanadas are either fried or baked golden for a perfect handheld treat.

Fillings can include anything from seasoned beef, chicken, pork, seafood or vegetables and even pumpkin.

For this recipe, we’re baking chorizo empanadas.

One afternoon in Culinary School, we made around four hundred authentic Argentinean empanadas. We learned the technique of holding the filled empanada in one hand and using the other hand to twist the pasty into a beautiful braided border to seal the package. That braided border is called a repulgue.

There were about a dozen of us in an unsupervised assembly line and unfortunately I remember more about our conversations than I do the learning experience.

Once the empanadas were filled and sealed, they were handed over to Nathan who was manning the deep fryer for their traditional cooking method.

Some were burnt, some fell apart because they weren’t sealed properly, or overfilled, and some were greasy due to not keeping the deep fryer at proper temperature. It was somewhat of a mess.

It wasn’t until this past Fall, when our son had us over for happy hour, that my interest in making these at home became a quest. His girlfriend Julie served some of the most delicious chorizo empanadas I’ve ever had, and when she announced they were baked, I was all in.

Let’s take a look.

Ingredients for Making Baked Empanadas Dough

Mise en place. Always gather ingredients before starting any recipe. It will save you time and organize your mind.

• Cream Cheese: Full fat cream cheese not only adds an additional depth of flavor, but also brings elasticity to the dough, which in turn yields a tender flaky crust once baked.
• Butter: My favorite “fat” for making pastry dough. It produces a beautiful all butter pie crust, as well as for this empanada dough. And it brings that buttery flavor that we all love.
• Salt and Flour: The backbone of the dough.

Filling Ingredients Chorizo Empanadas

• Cilantro: Fine chopped.
• Grated Cheese: I chose a medium sharp cheddar cheese.
• Chorizo: Purchased bulk packaged, rather than a tube of chorizo.
• Spices: Oregano and Cumin
• Chile Peppers: Roasted, peeled and chopped. I use either Hatch Chiles or Colorado Pueblo Chiles.
• Olives: I chose black olives, chopped. They add a briny flavor note and additional texture.
• Seasoning: Chopped garlic, salt and pepper, to taste.

Ingredient Swaps

• Protein: Use ground beef, ground chicken or turkey in place of the chorizo. If using a lean protein, you’ll need to add a splash of oil to the pan before frying.
• Cheese: Use any type of cheese for this recipe, as long as it’s a hard cheese that will grate well. Monterey Jack is a good choice here, or Muenster.
• Chile Peppers: This recipe calls for Hatch chile peppers. If you don’t have a stash of roasted peppers in your freezer, substitute canned Hatch chiles. Roasted poblano peppers are a good choice here.
• Olives: Next time I make these, I want to use chopped green olives in place of the black olives.

How to make Baked Empanada Dough

Step 1: In a large bowl, add room temperature cream cheese, cold butter, flour and salt. Using a dough blender, start combining ingredients.

Step 2: Mix the dough until you achieve the “shaggy mass” stage. Dough will be crumbly but begins to clump together. This stage will easily form a ball.

Step 3: Press the cream cheese empanada dough together to form a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for thirty minutes or even overnight if you wish.

The Filling

Step 4: In the meantime, prepare the filling for the empanadas. Simply brown chorizo and remove from heat. Drain excess grease, if needed, and stir in remaining ingredients.

It’s time to fill and seal chorizo empanadas.

• Step 5. Roll the dough and fill the empanadas. Using a rolling pin and a floured surface, roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut the dough into circles. I used a 4-inch mini tart pan to cut my circles.
• Step 6: Place a small amount of filling in the center. Make sure you have a clean margin of dough around the edge of the filling. Don’t overfill the empanadas, or you’ll end up with filling that leaks out during baking, or an empanada that breaks.

Step 7: Fold the dough over and using the back of a fork to press the edges together.

Step 8: Place the sealed empanadas de chorizo on a sheet pan and brush with an egg and milk mixture. This will help them to turn that beautiful golden brown while baking.

FAQ’s, Empanadas de Chorizo

Pro Tip: Use Cold Butter. Keep that butter nice and cold before blending the empanada dough. If the butter is too warm, it will blend too quickly and you will not achieve that shaggy mass stage.

Recipe for Baked Chorizo Empanadas (Empanadas de Chorizo)

I hope you give this chorizo empanada recipe a try, and if you do, please come back and give the recipe a star rating. And scroll down and leave a comment about your experience with the recipe.

And if you have a favorite empanadas de chorizo recipe, let me know. Now that I had such success with this recipe, I’m looking for more filling ideas for chorizo.

Dipping sauce for empanadas: Serve with either Tomato Salsa or Roasted Hatch Chile Sauce.

And if you love Mexican food as much as we do, check out my Mexican Food Category. You’ll find plenty of fun recipes, including the most popular on my site for Hatch Green Chili.

Chorizo Empanadas …. They’re what’s for dinner.

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