Breakfast Empanadas – An Easy Versatile Recipe
For today’s recipe, I will show you how to make the best breakfast empanadas from scratch! My homemade dough is extremely crispy and has a rich, buttery flavor.
Make sure to try these with any one of my homemade smoothies or juices, and let me know what you think!
Why I Love These Breakfast Empanadas
Empanadas are one of the most popular Latin American snacks and for a very good reason! Each piece consists of two parts: the flaky pastry and a delicious moist filling.
The pastry is pretty much the same for all recipes. It’s rich thanks to all the butter, has a very crispy texture, and flakes apart when bitten.
When it comes to the filling, there is no limit to what you can use. So today, we are making delicious breakfast empanadas with an egg, spinach, tomato, and cheese filling. It may be simple, but it’s a fun new way to serve these traditional breakfast ingredients.
While the empanadas aren’t the quickest dish to make, you can make a bunch in advance and simply freeze them assembled (unbaked). This will allow you to easily grab and cook some on busy (or lazy) mornings.
And even though these are better suited for breakfast, you can still serve them for lunch or dinner!
How to make Breakfast Empanadas
To make the filling, prepare the tomato, spinach, and cheese and mix them together with the eggs before seasoning them with salt and pepper.
For the dough, sift the flour into a bowl, add salt, and butter, and mix. Then add egg and half of the milk before kneading it to form a smooth dough.
Cut circles from the dough using a circle cutter then them shape into half-moon shapes by pinching both edges together at the bottom.
Add the filling through the top hole for each empanada.
Before baking put the ready-made empanadas into the fridge for about 20 minutes to chill. In the meantime preheat the oven (350°F / 175°C). Take the empanadas out of the fridge and brush them with a bit of egg yolk.
Bake the empanadas for 15 to 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.
Once slightly cooled, serve and enjoy! This delicious treat is perfect for any breakfast or brunch!
Variations For My Empanadas Recipe
You can play around with different fillings for these breakfast snacks.
You can add finely diced pieces of cured or dried meats, like salami, cooked bacon, or ham.
You can also add some freshly chopped herbs and a variety of spices. This way, you can have different flavors and never get bored!
How To Store Leftover Breakfast Empanadas
There are a couple of ways you can store leftover breakfast empanadas.
You can store the raw dough as-is inside the freezer for up to 6 months! It’s best to use it sooner, but still possible!
Then, you can store the unbaked assembled empanadas in the fridge or freezer. If you keep them in the fridge, I would recommend you use them within a day. But, if you freeze them, they will last about 1-2 months. Again, it’s best to use them sooner rather than later.
Then, you can also store leftover baked breakfast empanadas. In the fridge, they will last about 3 days inside an airtight container. But, in the freezer, they can last up to 3 months.
FAQs
You definitely can, and you can keep the baking temperature the same. You may bake the empanadas for a slightly shorter amount of time, around 15 minutes usually. But check their doneness before removing and serving them.
If you are serving these for breakfast, I would recommend pairing them with a healthy smoothie, like my Breakfast Oatmeal Smoothie or this Blueberry Banana Smoothie. But, if you are serving it as a meal (lunch or dinner) you can pair it with rice, salsa, corn salad, fried plantains, or black beans.
That’s a tough question! I love the uber-crispy texture of fried foods, but they are loaded with oil and calories. It’s an extremely unhealthy cooking method. So, I would say baking is probably better. You still get a crispy texture to some degree. It would be even better if you could air-fry the empanadas.
Breakfast Empanadas – An Easy Versatile Recipe
Ingredients
For the empanada filling
- 1 medium tomato, wedges, deseeded, and thinly chopped
- 2 cups baby spinach leaves, finely chopped
- 1 cup cheese, grated
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- Sea salt, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the dough
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 6 tbsp butter, cubed, cold
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1/2 cup milk (or water)
Instructions
Make the filling
- First, prepare the ingredients. You can cut the tomato into wedges and remove the seeds. Then, thinly slice them before dicing them into smaller cubes.
- Chop the baby spinach leaves and grate the cheese. Set these aside.
- Next, beat together the 4 eggs in a large mixing bowl. Then, season them with salt and pepper to taste.
- Add all of the chopped fillings (tomato, spinach, and cheese) and fold them in very well. Set the filling aside.
Make the empanada dough
- To start, sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. add the salt and mix the dry ingredients together very well.
- Then, add the cubed butter. Rub it into the flour using your fingers. The texture of the dough will become coarse and sand-like.
- Next, add the beaten egg and half of the milk. Using a spatula, mix the wet ingredients into the flour-butter mixture.
- Add more milk as it's needed to adjust the consistency and ultimately form a dough. DO NOT add too much milk, or the dough will become sticky.
- Once your dough starts forming, use your hands to knead it together. You should end with a smooth, uniform lump of dough.
Shape the breakfast empanadas
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll it out until it's reached about 0.1 inches (3mm) in thickness.
- Then, use a large circle cutter to cut out as many circles as you can. Remove the dough between the discs.
- Transfer the discs to a lined baking tray, spacing them apart evenly.
- Next, take the two opposing sides of the dough and start pinching their edges together. This will form a half-moon shape. Work from the bottom toward the top. You will need to work from both edges to leave a small hole (gap) at the top for the filling to go into. Repeat with all the discs.
- Once they are all shaped, you can use a teaspoon to add the filling through the hole. Pinch the hole closed and make sure all the edges are sealed.
- Repeat with all the empanadas.
- Before baking put the ready-made empanadas into the fridge for about 20 minutes to chill. Then take them out and brush the empanadas with a bit of
Bake the empanadas
- In the meantime preheat the oven to (350 F/180 F).
- Brush the empanadas with a bit of egg jork.
- Then, leave them to bake for roughly 15-20 minutes or until they are golden brown and the dough is no longer raw.
- Remove them and leave them to cool slightly at room temperature before serving.
