Cheesy potato empanadas
A great and delicious empanada potato twist !
Empandas are a popular street food or afternoon snack in Hispanic contries for a very good reason! You only require a handful of ingredients and they come together in less than 10 minutes. If you are intimidated by making your own empanada dough with flaur and doughts that require kneading, I’ve got you covered with this gluten free potato empanda recipe. You only really need 3 ingredients to make this dough and 2min of mixing the ingredients together to make the dough. And the result is a delciously crispy potato empanda that can be stuffed with your favourite filling! You can get creative with the fillings, but in this case I am doing my favourite (and also the easiest): lots of mozzarella cheese !
While you can certainly have these empanadas as a dinner side paired with some chilli, stew or soup, they also make a great party snack and you can make small tiny versions for that finger food feel !
🌱GF
🍽️ 3-4 empandas
Ingredients
200g potato (peeled)
70g cornstarch (US)/ cornflour (UK)
20g butter
Recomended filling: Mozzarella cheese
Method
Peel and cut your potatoes into cubes, transfer to a pot with salted boilign water and cook until fork tender. Remove from the heat and drain completely from water. Transfer them to a potato ricer or use a potato masher to mash them into a bowl.
Into the bowl add the flour adn butter and then season with more salt if needed. Start kneading until it comes together into a dough. If the dough feels too sticky (different potato varieties have different water content) add more flour 1tbsp at a time. It should be dry enough that you can make small balls and flatten them without the dough breaking appart.
Divide the dough into 3-4 equal pieces and shape each into a ball with the palm of your hands. You can oil you hands with a bit of olive oil which will make working with the dough a bit easier.
Place the dough in between two layers of cling film and using a flat plate or board flatten it into a disc about 1.5cm cm thick.
Once you have your flattened dough, remove the top plastic and place a generous amount of cheese filling in the middle. Then using the plastic underneath, fold the dough over to enclose the filling, forming a half circle. Aiding yourself with the cling film seal the edges of the empanada by pressing it. Now you can use a small bowl or a knife to remove the excess dough around the edges of the empanada forming a semi circle.
To a frying pan, add some olive oil (optional) and bring to medium heat. Place your empanadas and cook for about 5 minutes on each side until golden brown. Remove from the pan, transfer to some kitchen paper to drain off excess oil and leave it to cool for a couple of minutes. Alternatively, you can brush them with some olive oial and bake them in the airfryer at 190C for 12-14 min flipping them half-way until golden
FAQS and Tips
I love serving these empandas with some aji verde sauce although they are also delicious with ali oli or guacamole
You can directly freeze the empanadas after making them and once ready to consume remove them from the freezer and pan fry them directly on a pan
You can substitute the veggie stock with water and then add your own seasoning of choice such as garlic salt, chilli or Italian herbs
