Dough for Argentinian empanadas

Empanadas or empanadillas are a delicious snack to take-away or to eat at home. This easy dough recipe will make your empanadas taste amazingly good.

The dough for Argentinian empanadas is slightly different than the dough of the Galician empanada that I showed you in another post. The Argentinian dough contains butter instead of oil, and no yeast, although some Galician empanadas don’t contain yeast either.

Here I will show you how to make a dough for Argentinian empanadas with simple ingredients and in just a few easy steps. You can then fill them with whatever ingredients you like, such as veggies, cheese, or meat. My favorite filling is this veggie-mushroom.

I usually bake the empanadas in the oven, but you can also fry them. The empanadas turn out great: golden, with a buttery, thin and soft dough.

These are the ingredients:

Steps to make the dough:

Steps to form the empanadas:

Method A: Roll the dough

Method B: make balls

Baking the empanadas:

Here is the recipe:

Dough for Argentinian empanadas

Nerea Moss and Rock

This is the recipe to make a super easy dough for Argentinian empandas. It makes about 17-20 small empanadas

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Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 25 mins

Resting time 1 hr

Total Time 1 hr 40 mins

Servings 17 empanadas

INGREDIENTS

  

• 500 g all purpose wheat flour
• 100 g butter or margarine – (room temperature, softened)
• 1 tbsp salt – (or 10 g)
• 1 glass water – (or 200 mL)
• 4 tbsp milk or eggwash – (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Form the dough (see above for step-by-step pictures)

• Mix the flour with the salt and incorporate the water little by little
• Keep kneading the dough until you have added all the water and the dough has come together. Cover it and let it rest for 15 minutes.
• Incorporate the butter to the dough in the bowl or on the countertop. Add the butter in two steps. Flatten the dough, add the butter and knead.
• At first, the dough will look like it is breaking into pieces, but keep kneading for about 5-10 minutes until it has absorbed all the butter and the dough looks smooth.

Refrigerate

• Form a ball and place the dough back in the greased bowl, cover with a towel or plastic and place in the fridge for about 1 hour. This will firm up the butter in the dough and make it easier to handle later.

Form the empanadas

• Take out of the fridge and let it rest at room temperature for about 5 minutes.
• Dust the work surface with flour and place the dough on top. Now you have two options to form the empanadas:

  A) Roll the dough with a roller pin until thin (2 mm) and then cut circules using a glass or a cup

  B) Make about 17-20 small balls with the dough and then flatten them using your hands or a rolling pin
• Fold the dough over the filling and close the empanada using a fork or making folds with your fingers.

Baking

• Place the empandas in a tray with baking paper and paint them with milk or eggwash.
• Bake them in a preheated oven (heat up and down) at 200°C (392°F) for about 25 minutes or until they are golden (but don't over-bake them or the dough will become too hard)

Notes

• These quantities give around 17 empanadas, but it depends on how thin you roll the dough (if you follow that method) and how big you make the empandas. You can end up having less or more empanadas.

Keyword dough, empanada