I love empanadas! I love fried empanadas filled with stringy Oaxaca cheese and jalapeño! Little did I know how many of these tasty little pockets I would prepare by my own hands these past couple of years. Once I learned to prepare a home-style empanada dough years ago, the premade disc went by the wayside. What brought me back to giving these flaky disc another try? My foodie friend, Norma, prepared her delicious Puerto Rican beef picadillo empanadas for us and I was instantly obsessed with fried empanadas once again!
My thought’s immediately went to a warm, super melty cheese empanada. And since I can’t seem to prepare any savory food without some heat attached to it, the pickled jalapeños were the perfect match up!
The secret to frying these is that perfect oil temperature. After a few short minutes of draining them on paper towels after frying, the dough is perfectly crisp and flaky. Oh, and so tasty!
Empanadas de Queso(Cheese Empanadas)
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 10 large pastry disc Goya
- 14-16 oz. of queso Oaxaca shredded
- Pickled jalapeños strips
- Oil for frying
Instructions
Directions
- Remove the frozen empanada disc from freezer and thaw out on the counter until they are soft and pliable.
- In a heavy pot, preheat 4 cups of oil at medium heat for 7-10 minutes or until temperature reaches 350 degrees.
- Take each disc and gently roll on flat surface, just to smooth out the edges of dough a bit.
- Fill one side with handful of shredded Oaxaca cheese and a few jalapeno strips. Using your finger, dip in water and wet the edge of pastry the is not filled. Fold over and pinch and seal or use a fork to seal.
- Fry the filled empanadas for 3-5 minutes in preheated oil . Turn as needed. Drain onto a plate lined with paper towels. Serve right away with your favorite salsa!
Notes
As you can guess, now I keep a package of these pastry disc in my freezer all the time. The empanadas come together so quickly and the dough is easy to work with. Don’t get me wrong though, I still prepare my own dough and roll out each dough ball to form, fill and bake my empanadas. Practice is the key to learning and becoming confident when wanting to master something worthwhile.
Find a good quality Oaxaca cheese, even if it means going online to do it. Nothing compares!
And when I ran out of cheese, I went freezer diving and found a freezer bag filled with previously prepared Red Chile Beef Brisket! I brought it to room temperature and reheated it low and slow until most of the liquid had evaporated. Once it cooled, it became an empanada filling! For these size disc, I used 1/3 cup of beef brisket filling. Hearty and delicious. Fill, seal and cook as directed above. Red Chile Beef Brisket
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