The school I teach at has a large Hispanic populations, and it has really pushed me to work on broadening my cooking horizons into Mexican food! All last week with the pierogis I said I was making empanadas, because I remembered my recipe wrong. This week I decided to go all in. This is NOT a time friendly weeknight meal, but I still did it on a random Wednesday. You can definitely buy premade empanada wrappers (but where’s the fun in that, who doesn’t like rolling out excessive amounts of dough on a Wednesday). The filling can be whatever you want it to be, we went for a simple beef and cheese filling that tasted like taco sloppy joes, and it was fine with me!

Empanada Dough

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup to 1 1/2 cup water
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine flour and salt in the food processor, pulse a couple times to combine. Cut the butter into pieces, pulse into mixture until combined. Add the egg and drizzle 1/2 cup of water into the food processor as you combine. Add more water until the dough has formed a smooth ball. You’ll want to take it out and kneed it by hand to make sure it’s not too dry and crumbly. Cover and let rest in the fridge for an hour.

When it’s done resting and the filling is done, divide dough in half and roll out until it’s nice and thin. I used my biggest biscuit cutter to cut circles, and then rolled them a little bit more until they were as thin as I wanted. You want them thick enough to hold the filling, but thin enough to fold and hold.

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Beef and Cheese Filling

• Half a white onion, diced
• 1 rib of celery, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 1 lb ground beef
• taco seasoning to taste
• 1 8-oz can tomato sauce
• 2 tsp (ish) Worcestershire  sauce
• Shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, beaten

Cook the garlic in olive oil until fragrant, then add the vegetables. Saute until soft, and then add the ground beef. Cook until no longer pink, and then drain as much grease out as you can before adding the Worcestershire, taco seasoning, and tomato sauce. Simmer until no longer super liquidy.

To Assemble

In the rolled out dough, add a spoonful (more or less depending on the size you rolled) of filling onto the dough and top with cheese. Fold over and press to seal. Transfer to a baking dish lined with parchment paper, and press with a fork to seal. Cheese may run out, and it’s fine because crispy cheese is great. Right before you put them in the oven, coat with eggwash. Cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.

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I found that I didn’t need to seal these with eggwash, but I think with the premade dough you would need that extra moisture.

We served these with green salsa from the Tamale lady at the Farmers Market here on Tuesdays. She’s my favorite person there, and we LOVE her salsa and tamales.