Vegetarian Empanadas

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Empanadas are South American pastries with a variety of fillings. In countries like Argentina and Chile, each region has its own version of empanada…

This recipe is for a vegetarian version with beans, corn, carrots, peppers and cheese, but you can easily adapt it. If you’re in a hurry, you can replace the dough with ready-made ones from the supermarket.

When the empanadas come out of the oven, they are still very hot. Although it’s difficult, it’s worth letting them cool a little (and not burn your mouth). They are also a great snack when lukewarm.

Empanadas are usually served without any special toppings, but if they seem a little dry, a simple sauce can help - like the fantastic chimichurri sauce, which just makes everything it touches better. ✨

Recipe #

Vegetarian Empanadas

50 minutes

2 portions

Ingredients #

Dough #

• 250 g wheat flour (and a little more for rolling out)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 150 g butter
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• to coat at the end: 1 egg, 20 g milk

Filling #

• 1 small onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 small carrot
• 1/4 yellow bell pepper
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 120 g kidney beans
• 75 g sweetcorn
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 pinch of pepper
• 1 pinch of chilli powder
• 1 pinch of smoked paprika powder
• 50 g grated cheese

Directions #

1. First make the dough: Put all the ingredients in a bowl with 3-4 tablespoons of water and knead into a dough. Leave to rest while you prepare the filling.
2. Peel and chop the onion and garlic. Fry in a pan with oil over a medium heat.
3. Peel and chop the carrot. Wash, seed and chop the peppers. When the onions are soft, add the diced carrots and peppers to the pan with the tomato puree and fry.
4. After a few minutes, add the beans and corn, along with the rest of the vegetables. Season to taste with salt, pepper, chilli and smoked paprika powder. Turn off the heat and add the grated cheese to the frying pan.
5. While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the pastry pockets: Dust the work surface with a little flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Use a glass or a small bowl to cut out circles (gather the leftover dough between the circles to form a dough, roll out again and cut out circles until you have used all the dough).
6. Separate the egg. Brush the outer edges of the circles with the egg white. Place a heaped teaspoon of the vegetable filling in the centre of the circle, then fold the top half of the circle over the bottom half and press the edge down to form a semicircle.
7. Mix the yolk of the egg you just separated with a little milk and spread it on the top of the empanadas.
8. Place the empanadas on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in the oven at 180-200 degrees (fan oven) for about 12-15 minutes until the dough is golden brown. Once baked, leave to cool slightly before serving.

Carbon Footprint #

In total, two portions of vegetarian empanadas have an estimated carbon footprint of 2686 g.

This ranks it number 49 out of 56 recipes published on the blog so far in terms of estimated carbon footprint.

Overall, it is one of the 20% of recipes with the highest climate impact - at least 80% of recipes cause fewer emissions than this dish. 😞

However, the estimated carbon footprint is still significantly lower than the reference recipes, which average over 4000 g of CO₂ equivalents for every two portions.

The most striking ingredient, of course, is butter: The butter for the dough makes up only about 15% of the ingredients, but causes half the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire recipe! The main reason for this is, of course, the methane produced by dairy farming (the famous farting cows 🐮 💨 ) and the amount of milk needed to make butter (21-25 litres of milk for 1kg of butter, source). Cheese also contributes disproportionately to the carbon footprint. Vegetables, on the other hand, come off relatively well: carrots, peppers, beans and corn make up 30% of the ingredients, but only about 10% of the carbon footprint of this recipe.

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