Mini Santa Maria Chicken Empanadas

I love tapas! The first time I took the Lazy Palate to a tapas restaurant, we were in Alexandria, VA. We had just had French food the day before and his comment when I wanted to eat Spanish food was, “are you trying to kill me? I can’t handle all this new food!” We went in the little restaurant and had 3 different sea food tapas, and they were amazing. For me, I looked at the dishes and said, “I can make this myself.” That started my quest for great tapas recipes. The Lazy Palate still hasn’t caught the tapas bug, but I am predetermined to find a tapas recipe that he likes.

I found a great recipe for the filling portion of empanadas from The F Word, one of Chef Ramsey’s TV shows. If you have not seen The F Word, I highly recommend the show. It show cases Chef Ramsey’s culinary talent more than Kitchen Nightmares. The show is faced paced, so if you want to try one of their recipes then you have to visit the TV show’s web-site. I adapted the filling for the empanadas below from this recipe. For the dough, I used a simple recipe that I normally use for fried dough. I do not know the original source of the fried dough recipe because I obtained it long ago.

I loved this recipe and give it 5 stars. I found the empanadas to be flavorful. I love the way all the different peppers blended together with the chicken. The tomato paste makes the filling feel like a unified solution instead of just a bunch of random ingredients stuffed in a dough ball. However, the Lazy Palate on the other hand did not care for the recipe. He loved the dough, but he did not care for all peppers inside the empanada. He gives this recipe 2 stars.

Without further ado, here is my version of Mini Santa Maria Chicken Empanadas.

Mini Santa Maria Chicken Empanadas (makes 40 three inch empanadas)

Ingredients for the dough

3 cups of all purpose flour plus two tablespoons

1 tsp of salt

3 tbsp of melted unsalted butter

1 large egg

1 large egg white

1 tsp white vinegar

½ cup cold water


Ingredients for the filling

1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

1 yellow onion, diced


2 cups of fully cooked shredded chicken breast

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 tsp of chili powder

1 tsp of paprika

1 serrano pepper, diced (you can substitute any pepper that you like)

6 ounces of tomato paste

2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped

2 tbsp of green olives, pitted and chopped

2 cups of frying oil such as peanut of canola oil


Directions for making the dough (makes 40 three inch empanada shells)

1. In a medium sized bowl, beat the butter, eggs, vinegar, salt, and water.

2. In a large bowl add the 3 cups of flour. Then, slowly add the above mixture of liquid ingredients to the flour while stirring. Continue stirring until the dough becomes stiff. You may need to use an electric mixer to stir the dough as it gets stiffer.

3. Take the 1 tbsp of flour and lightly flour a flat surface. Take the dough and knead the dough on the floured surface for 2 minutes. If you find your dough too stiff, then add a little water. If you find your dough too loose, then add a little more flour.

4. Lightly dust a rolling pin with the remaining 1 tbsp of flour. Roll the dough into a very thin pancake.

5. Cut out 3 inch circles out of the dough. Reroll the remaining left over dough and cut out more 3 inch circles. Repeat the process until all the dough is used up.



Directions for making the empanadas

1. Fry the onions in a hot pan with the olive oil. After the onions are transparent turn down the heat to low and add the chicken, peppers, chili powder, and paprika. Cook for about 10 minutes.

2. Add the tomato paste to the pan and cook for another 5 minutes.

3. Take the filling off of the heat and let it cool until you can easily touch the filling without burning yourself. Add the egg and olives to the cooled mixture.

4. On your floured surface, put a quarter sized ball of filling on the middle of a dough circle. Fold the dough circle in half with the filling in the middle. Lightly press the edges of the empanada together. Repeat until all the empanadas are filled and shaped.

5. Deep fry the empanadas in the frying oil until golden brown. Let the empanadas cool slightly and serve warm.

Posted on Ingredient Spotlight.