Empanadas are equally convenient and confusing. On the one hand, these little pastries are easy to eat with one hand, making them perfect options for both fancy dinner parties and street fair food stalls. But on the other hand, you never know what you’re getting until you bite into one. And that’s not just because there are so many different fillings, but also because there are different empanada recipes from all over the world, which means you might not know which continent’s cuisine you’re about to devour. That’s why we’ve gathered your biggest empanada questions into one place, starting with…
What are empanadas?
Empanadas are a type of stuffed pastry which can be filled with meat, vegetables or fruit, depending on the recipe. Also, different parts of the world use different doughs for the pastry, including bread dough, shortcrust dough, or masa, a corn-based dough. Empanadas can be either baked or fried, depending on the recipe. So, really they can be made of almost anything, as long as you’ve got dough wrapped around a filling. Hope that clears things up!
Where are empanadas from?
It’s believed that empanadas originated in Galicia, Spain, but soon spread to other parts of Spain and Portugal. Spanish colonization later spread the recipe all over the world, with areas like The Philippines, Central America, and South America each developing their own versions of empanadas, often combining with their local culinary traditions to develop their own unique recipes.
What does “empanada” mean?
The name comes from the Spanish verb “empanar,” which means “to wrap in bread.” So it basically means, “breaded” or “coated in bread.” And while that might sound a little vague, it’s a pretty appropriate name for a dish with so many different variations.
What’s in an empanada?
That depends on what kind of empanada you’re getting. Really, you can stuff an empanada with just about any kind of filling, either savory or sweet. And most countries have a wide range of recipes to choose from. And while we don’t have room to go through them all, here’s just a brief sample of the many different types of empanadas and what they can contain.
Argentine-style empanadas
These use a shortcrust-style, flour-based dough. Common fillings include ham and cheese, eggs mixed with bacon and humita, a dish made from pounded and steamed corn. One of the most popular recipes involves minced beef, mixed with onions, olives, and hard-boiled eggs.
El Salvadoran empanadas
Unlike all the other empanadas, these use mashed plantains, which are boiled and mixed with leche poleada, a type of sweet milk custard, to become the “dough.” They’re then filled with refried beans or custard, coated in cinnamon and sugar and fried.
Mexican-style empanadas
These empanadas typically use masa, a corn-based dough, although some areas of Mexico use wheat flour. While one of the more common fillings is spiced beef, there are a bunch of regional variations. For example, in Chiapas, they offer the “empanaditas chiapacorceñas,” a baked empanada filled with shredded pork. And in the Yucatan, they stuff empanadas with chaya, a leafy shrub that’s similar to spinach. They also serve sweet empanadas, including a popular pumpkin empanada that’s flavored with cinnamon.
Philippines-style empanadas
The traditional Filipino empanada is a wheat-flour pastry filled with onions, raisins, peas, and potatoes, mixed with ground beef, chicken, or pork. In the northern Philippines, they also offer the Ilocos empanada, which features an orange annatto-flavored crust filled with green papaya, mung beans, and pork sausage. And for dessert, they offer sweet “empanaditas” (“little empanadas”) filled with peanut butter, chocolate, dulce de leche, latik (a sweetened coconut curd), or yema, a type of sweet egg custard.
Where can I get empanadas?
As we’ve mentioned, the portable nature of these little pastries mean that you can often find them at street fairs and food trucks. But you can also find a bunch of different pre-cooked frozen empanadas at your local grocery store.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!