Filipino Rotisserie Chicken Empanadas

This is a variation of the chicken empanadas we used to eat growing up with some hacks to make it faster to prepare. As I wrote about in a previous post, empanadas are fried or baked turnovers -- with dough/pastry outside & inside filling.

https://www.wearegoodatthis.com/post/can-i-make-empanadas-cleaning-out-your-fridge

These are baked empanadas and the traditional filling is: chicken, potatoes, raisins, peas and carrots. I didn't include the peas & carrots. :)

I decided to make my own dough again; I used the recipe I did previously (link above) with adjustments based on what I observed. I used: 1 1/2 cups of flour, 3 tablespoons of shortening, 1/2 egg, 3/8 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of salt (saving the other 1/2 egg for the egg wash).

With this version of the dough, each empanada is probably around ~130-140 calories total (118 calories (for dough) plus filling (not that much). Not bad! :) They are filling too.

Making your own dough is the rate-limiting step because you have to let it rest for 30 min in the fridge. I made my own dough & I think it took me 1 hour, 15 min -- start-to-finish. You could probably use PIllsbury pizza crust / dough or something like that to make it faster.

Filling

I used this recipe on Panlasang Pinoy website as a basis for preparing the filling -- with some hacks. It took about 5-7 minutes to make the filling.

https://panlasangpinoy.com/filipino-cuban-spanish-food-chicken-empanada-picadillo-recipe/

The amount of filling I ended up making was twice as much as what was needed for 8 empanada plus 1 mini-empanada. :) I ate the extra filling on its own; it's tasty.

Rotisserie Chicken

I shredded some Rotisserie Chicken (without the skin) with my hands; probably about 1/2 to 2/3 cup.

Potato

I used 1/2 Russet potato. I microwaved it for 4 minutes and cut it into cubes (~ 1 cm).

Raisins

I added a handful, probably ~1/4 cup or a little less.

You can adjust the ratios of the ingredients to your preference.

I just mixed it all together in a bowl as you can see in the photos above.

Assembling and Baking the Empanadas

I assembled the empanadas the same way as I noted in my previous post.

I was much faster at making empanadas the second time around. :)

I brushed them with egg wash because they were going in the oven.

I baked them at 400 degrees for 25-27 minutes. Yum!

Give it a try! We are good at this!