Giant Beef Empanadas
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These Beef Empanadas have a flavorful and savory filling inside a tenderly flaky crust. What’s even better is that this recipe is an easy one and y’all know those are my favorites.
Now here is our recipe for delicious Beef Empanadas. A flavorful and savory filling inside a tenderly flaky crust. What’s even better is that this recipe is an easy one and y’all know those are my favorites. Life is complicated enough without bringing all that mess into our kitchens!
You’ll need: Pie Crusts (You can make your own or use store brand roll out crusts), Cheddar Cheese, Salt, Diced Tomatoes, Pepper, Onion, Chili Powder, Cumin, and Ground Beef.
Brown your beef and onion in a large skillet over medium high heat, breaking it up really well as you do.
Like this. 
Add your tomatoes and seasonings and stir together. Return to heat.
Simmer uncovered stirring occasionally for 20-25 minutes until mixture thickens and most of tomato juice is absorbed.
Karen says it is important to place your pie crusts exactly where you want them because once you put the filling in there will be no moving without tearing. So I hung each over a bit on a large cookie sheet. That way I can just flip the top over and be done.
Place one unrolled pie crust at one end of greased cookie sheet. (If baking both giant empanadas on same cookie sheet think ahead about placement. Once beef is added you cannot move empanada).
Place half of beef mixture on half of pastry leaving one inch border around edges.
Note: This is way too much filling. You can read about why below. 🙂 You should use about 2/3 of what you see here. If you have extra you can freeze it and have Empanadas for another day…
Sprinkle with about ½ of cheese (careful not to over fill with either beef or cheese) Carefully pull remaining dough over, covering meat and cheese meeting the edge of bottom crusts.Spoon your filling into each one.
And now more about the blow out…
Karen says not to overstuff your pie crust or you’ll have a blow out. These photographs are excellent examples of me overstuffing. I did have a blow out. Don’t overstuff. You need about 2/3 the amount of filling shown here.
If you do have a blow out you can patch it with more pie dough or cook it as is, it will be fine and still taste wonderful.
It drives me crazy when folks tell me something didn’t turn out perfectly and they threw it away. Seriously. I actually gasp in horror whenever I read one of those comments. Threw it away? Even my goofs get eaten. To this day I have never had a meal so bad that we couldn’t manage to eat it and call it supper.
Okay so you fold your beautiful pies over and then fold the edges up and press them to seal a bit. You can use a fork or just your fingers. Then, beat an egg and brush that over it, too.
Wanna see my blow out?
I patched it up with a little dough and smoothed it over a bit. A little meat and such popped out when I was cooking it but you know what?
It still ate just fine!
The world did not end.
No one felt the least bit horrified at the supper table when they saw it. They smiled and said it looked good and ate it up.
And if anyone had of thrown it away or acted horrified at my house…. well lets just say they know better because they were raised to know better :).
Bake these at 400 for 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown.
Serve with your choice of toppings. After one bite of these, I can see why it is one of her husband’s favorite recipes. My husband said “WOW! This is amazing!”
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 cup onion chopped
- 1 cup green pepper chopped
- 1 can 14.5oz Diced Tomatoes, undrained
- 1 Tablespoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese
- 2 refrigerated ready made pie crusts Karen uses Pillsbury
- 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 Tablespoon water Optional
Instructions
- Cook beef, onions & green pepper in skillet until meat is no longer pink; drain.
- Return beef mixture to skillet and stir in tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, salt, & pepper.
- Simmer uncovered stirring occasionally for 20-25 minutes until mixture thickens and most of tomato juice is absorbed.
- Place one unrolled pie crust at one end of greased cookie sheet. (If baking both giant empanadas on same cookie sheet think ahead about placement. Once beef is added you can not move empanada) Place half of beef mixture on half of pastry (like half moon shape ‘D’ ) leaving one inch border around edges. Sprinkle with about ½ of cheese (careful not to over fill with either beef or cheese)
- Carefully pull remaining dough over, covering meat and cheese meeting the edge of bottom crusts. Crimp edges with fork to seal all around.
- Brush top with yolk mixture. (You should have a half moon shape) Repeat above with remaining pastry.
- Bake at 400 for 20 – 30 minutes or until golden brown.
- Serve with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, sour cream and guacamole.
Notes
Nutrition
“Good people bring out the good in other people.”
~Unknown
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I have a huge aversion to wasting food. My mom used to quote “waste not, want not’ endlessly and I still hear it in my head. I use the bread crusts, crumbs in thebottom of the creal and cracker bag, empty butter wrappers to grease pans and one and on. My kids make fun at time, but just the way I was raised. I love the look of the empinadas and am glad they are baked instead of fried. I am already thinking of other fillings too. Creamed chicken and peas, diced ham and broccoli, mini-meatball and mozzarella, browned sauage and cheese. I may have these thoughts till bedtime.LOL
Oh elaineraye I can relate – I go so far as to not let apple cores,banana peels, potato or carrot peels go to waste, onion ‘outtings’ , coffee grinds, tea leaves, egg shells… the list goes on. It either goes into my compost pile OR in a pot for stock THEN into my compost pile. My Culinary students chide me I am sure. But most have never had to work too hard for their food, so I try to bring them down a few notches about The Real World. ( I even have my fellow teachers bringing me their ‘scraps’ from home and lunch!!! ) I can not wait to see what kind of nutrients these will put back into my garden this summer.
We always made a creamed ham pie, like this, they were great for school lunches, and easy enough to make. Mom would get a can of ham (1 pound size) and dice it in chunks, (about half inch) and then make white sauce, and add a can of drained mixed veg, and the ham, and let it all cool a bit so its not runny. cut out circles (she used a hood for a spot light that I had found, its about 5 inches across and makes nice sized circles for the muffin tins or hand pies as she called these pies) then she’d bake them in the oven and soo good. We’d get at least a doz pies from the tenderflake recipe which is supposed to make 3 two crust pies. I never did them with anything else in them, but you could put almost any filling into a hand pie and it would be yummy.
I like the way you think Elaine!! Some of your “waste not, want not” tips are fabulous and ones I had not thought of!! Thank you for sharing!
Oh, Christy! This looks INCREDIBLY good….but I have to think ahead about the problem of my husband being a diabetic. Do you foresee a problem with substituting 10″ whole grain flour tortillas secured with toothpicks in place of the pie crusts, or should I just ‘fly by the seat of my pants, use them anyway and report how they turned out? 😉 LOL Exactly what does the egg yolk mixture do to the outside of the pie crusts? I’ve seen recipes call for brushing with an egg white and water solution, but never yolks. Oh, great and knowledgeable Wizard Home Chef, what be your opinions on my queries?
Linda
I had a friend who made pie crust for her diabetic husband, she said it was the fat and flour that was the problem, which is the entire pie crust, she just made them, and rolled them thinner than most people do. I roll my tenderflake lard pie crusts almost thin enough to see through. Never have a problem with them, the most problems I have as a diabetic, is the fact that I have no will to stop with one pie slice, or tart, I eat too many.
These look way too good to pass up!
As for the egg wash it helps to brown the crust so you get that delicious deep colour and crispy crust, I will wash mine with whipping cream if I have it, and egg beaten with a bit of water, I use a whole egg, but you can use either the whites or the yolk beaten with water it does the same thing. Makes the crust shinny too! If its a berry pie or or whatever I have dusted it with sugar to give it a bit of glitter it helps the sugar stick.
This should be good, since its quite high in protein, (especially if you over stuff them) I would serve them with a lovely green salad with a vinaigrette dressing and call it a meal, if you served them with beans it would be even higher in protein and would balance out the crust even more.
Thank you both for your suggestions, Marsha & Eva! My comment got posted twice by accident. Didn’t do it on purpose though. I think I heard the Internet hiccup, then a screen came up saying “I had said that before” but I hadn’t presssed the submit button yet. SO, in my complete flabber-gasted-ness I went back to look for my incomplete post and behold…there it was!!! Did a quick proof read, added a word or two, pressed the button and it appeared! YAY!
Marsha, sinceI stink at making pie crust I’ll have to pass on trying my hand at it again. It comes out looking like a train wreck and just as tough. Thank you very much for responding though!
Eva, your idea might just work! I have a handy-dandy rolling pin to do it with. I may try both ways of doing the outside crust and report my success or failure. Since I have the 10″ flour tortillas and box of toothpicks already I may try that way first. Will put the tenderflake lard pie crusts on the grocery list. Thank you very much for responding, Eva! I liked the side dishes you mentioned.
Warm hugs to both of you,
Linda
Linda I saw a box of gluten free pie crust mix at Wally World (Wal-Mart) I go not know if it is any good or not as I’ve not tried it yet. I have an elderly neighbor that can’t have gluten so I will try it. As for making a pie crust Christy has a no fail recipe on her site.
Opps…. do not know I don’t know where the word go came from! I guess I am wanting to go somewhere.
LOL Marsha!!! I know how strange it feels when something happens that turns you into Erkle – “Did I do thaaaat?” 😀 LOL I’ll take a look at the No Fail Pie Crust recipe, and thanks for letting me know about it! If I have to sub a more diabetic friendly flour for white flour, I fear it might start the train wreck again. I inflict such torment on innocent ingredients that I’m afraid they may rebel and gang up for revenge! 🙁
Hugs,
Linda
Oh, Christy! This looks INCREDIBLY good….but I have to think ahead about the problem of my husband being a diabetic. Do you foresee a problem with substituting 10″ whole grain flour tortillas secured with toothpicks in place of the pie crusts, or should I just ‘fly by the seat of my pants, use them anyway and report how they turned out? 😉 LOL Exactly what does the egg yolk mixture do to the outside of the pie crusts? I’ve seen recipes call for brushing with an egg white and water solution, but never yolks. Oh, great and knowledgeable Home Chef, what be your opinions?
Linda
Linda, why not make your own whole wheat crust. I made these this evening and they were amazing. I didn’t have any pie crust so I made my own as if making a pie. It worked great and was very flaky.
I must confess that threw away the first beef stroganoff I made as a teen. My brother and I could not choke it down and our beagle (who usually ate anything, including knee socks) refused to eat it. I don’t know what I did wrong all those years ago, but it must have been supremely horrendous for the dog to turn tail and run! I also ruined a beautiful rack of ribs by following the recipe directions and not checking on it more frequently…rather difficult to eat when you can’t tell the difference between the bone and the meat!! Of course, I never have the “man” the BBQ any more *grin*
My late husband loved these…but they were the frozen kind. I can’t wait to prepare this, and send this recipe to our kids. They are grown now, and I’m a proud grandma…..but you know how a meal can bring back some wonderful memories?
Definitely going to give these a try!
🙁 This is my sad face because, darn it, I just used up my last pie crust last week! I made quiche just to get rid of a pie crust that I had in the fridge, leftover from the holidays. If I still had it I’d be making this for dinner tonight! The recipe looks great and I’ll definitely be trying it real soon (pie crusts are going on the shopping list now).
Christy, thanks for letting us know about your overfilling problem because I surely would have done that myself had you not warned us. You know, you didn’t have to tell us about it and we never would have known that nothing but absolute perfection goes on in your kitchen. 🙂
Thanks to Karen for sharing her recipe, and thanks Christy for the post and pics! I’ll post again after I make it some time next week.