---
title: 'Sometimes You Just Need an Empanada in 5 minutes'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=OaKqfPfwl4w'
video_id: 'OaKqfPfwl4w'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 1010
---

# Sometimes You Just Need an Empanada in 5 minutes

> Source: [Sometimes You Just Need an Empanada in 5 minutes](https://youtube.com/watch?v=OaKqfPfwl4w)

## Summary

This video presents a recipe for empanadas with a red achiote-spiced dough and a New York-inspired chopped cheese filling. The creator demonstrates how to make the dough and filling, then shows three cooking methods: baking, air frying, and deep frying. A key technique is freezing the empanadas to achieve extra flakiness through thermal shock, allowing for a quick 5-minute cook from frozen.

### Key Points

- **Dough ingredients and technique** [0:52] — Use achiote (annatto) powder for color and flavor; cold lard or butter for flakiness; vinegar to inhibit gluten.
- **Chopped cheese filling preparation** [3:47] — Ground beef cooked with onions, peppers, garlic, pickled jalapeños, and a blend of American and Mexican cheeses, plus sazón seasoning.
- **Thermal shock for flaky texture** [11:01] — Freezing the empanadas creates thermal shock when cooked, leading to a flakier crust, especially when deep fried.
- **Three cooking methods compared** [11:47] — Bake at 400-425°F for 25 minutes; air fry at 375°F for 25 minutes; deep fry at 340-350°F for 4-5 minutes from frozen.
- **Deep frying technique from frozen** [14:50] — Preheat oil to 365-370°F so it drops to 340-350°F when frozen empanadas are added; fry for 4-5 minutes until golden and bubbly.

## Transcript

You've had an empanada before, but you
never had one at home at midnight in 5
minutes straight from your freezer.
Inspired by this Filipino empanada
that's making the rounds. This
incredible red aiote spiked dough, flaky
and crisp. Sort of reminded me of like a
Jamaican beef patty out of bodega. So
today I'm showing you how to make
empanada dough spiked with that
beautiful red and filled with a bodega
specialty that I love along with a trick
to be able to make these at home within
5 minutes anytime you want. This is the
chopped cheese and panada. And I'm going
to show you three ways of making them
each resulting in slightly different
characteristics. Airfried, baked, and
deep fried. And let me tell you while
all of them are great. Deep fried is
something special thanks to a little
thing called thermal shock, which we'll
talk about later. For now, we got to
make our dough. So, I've got a food
processor here. Into the bowl, we're
going to add 3 cups or about 370 g of
allpurpose flour. Season that with a
pinch of salt. Then, I just got some
anato achiote powder. Did I say paste
earlier? The powder is better. The paste
is difficult to work with. I'm going to
spike that flour. about two tablespoons
of the achiote. We're going to get that
on.
Add a little bit more. I want to make
sure they're nice and red. Then I've got
six tablespoons of cold lard. You can
use butter. You just want to get that
fat incorporated into the flour. All
we're looking for is to be able to
scrunch it up a bit. Right. That shows
that fat is distributed. Here I got one
egg. Let's go ahead and add some achiote
to that. The liquids are probably a
better vehicle.
Get it going. And then we can add in our
egg.
Since we want them nice and tender, we
don't really want to develop much
gluten. So, I'm going to add vinegar,
which inhibits gluten development. About
a tablespoon. And then we're going to go
ahead and pulse in about a half a cup to
start of cold water. Little at a time.
And you can see some are like darker
red, some are drier. I really just want
them to all be one color of red.
That's what you're looking for. Now, I
didn't really even use all that half
cup. I probably used around a/4 of a
cup. We can get it out of the food
processor and see where we're at. Now,
I've got a penion of cutting myself on
this thing, so always be careful. Maybe
needs a little bit more.
Now, I'm not kneading it. I'm more like
I'm compressing. When I want to add a
little bit more moisture, I just pour it
into my hands. Just work it in.
Now, I've got my ball of dough.
What I want to do, turn it into a disc,
and I want to cut it into fours.
You see all those layers? I'm going to
stack them.
Now, I can see the edges are pretty
hydrated. I've used I don't know a bit
more than a/4 of a cup of water. Get
that board wiped clean.
We're going to get that wrapped. Now,
besides the act of preventing gluten
development best we can, this is a lot
like pasta. We're essentially making
Latin raviolis. And so, your pasta
training today will pay off. It's going
to go into the fridge and relax while we
prepare other things. Now, on to the
filling. The empanada from the
Philippines. It's got langana, mung
beans, but I'm a New Yorker and an
empanada can be filled with anything
much like a ravioli. So, given my bodega
inspiration earlier, we're doing chopped
cheese filling. Just took some ground
beef and form them into patties. Just
set that off to the side. I got my
onion. I got some garlic. Got a red bell
pepper and pickled jalapenos. So, I have
one onion. I'm going to cut it in half.
Going to make some cuts along the top.
We're just going to dice it up. Bell
pepper. Just cut the cheeks off. We're
going to take those. We're going to cut
them into strips. Turn that. And we cut
them into a little dice. Those into a
bowl. Slice our garlic.
Then I got my pickled jalapenos. They're
in some of their liquid I've got there.
I'm going to keep that. Going to add
that into the mixture for some acidity.
I'm just going to chop up the jalapenos.
Get them back into that little bowl. And
of course, we got some seasonings. A
little garlic powder, a little onion
powder, and a little secret trick of the
trade. One of these saon packages. It's
got inato in it. The same thing we added
to the dough. It's got MSG. It's got all
the good stuff. Then, of course, we're
adding some cheese later. A little bit
of American, a little bit of a Mexican
blend. Now, we're ready to cook. So, I'm
going to go ahead and get the widest
sauté pan I've got on the stove
preheating on mediumigh heat. I've got
my lard off to the side. Since this is
an empanada recipe, I'm going to add the
lard to cook this beef in. And then I'm
going to add in my burger patties. I'm
going to allow them to sear on that
first side for a good 2 minutes. Once I
start to see browning around the edges,
I'll give them a flip. They're not
perfectly seared, but that's okay. We're
going to continue to sear that second
side before proceeding to break up the
meat into a nice mince. While that
happens, that moisture in the meat is
going to release. And we need to be
patient and cook out that moisture
before the meat begins to brown again.
Once we've got a good amount of that
moisture evaporated, I'm going to push
the meat off to the side and go ahead
and add in my onions and my peppers.
Season the vegetables. I'm really just
looking for them to soften, slightly
caramelize a bit before I start
incorporating them into the meat. Once
those vegetables are mixed in and are
starting to soften, then we can go ahead
and add in our garlic. And then we could
just allow that to start to soften as
well. And then get that mixed in. and
allow this whole mixture to cook down a
bit. And then we can go ahead and add in
the chopped pickled jalapenos with that
liquid. That liquid will sort of deglaze
the pan a bit and get that pickled
flavor, that acidity mixed into the
meat. Wakes everything up. Once
everything's looking great, we're going
to start to add in the spices. A little
bit of garlic powder, a little bit of
onion powder, and then finally that
packet of sone. Maybe like a half a
pack. Then we're going to get that mixed
in and allow those spices to fry a bit
and wake up. If everything's looking
good, we can go ahead and start to add
in our cheeses. I'm going to go with
about six slices of American cheese and
just slap it on top and allow that steam
to sort of loosen it and melt it and get
it nice and gooey before we start to
fold it into the meat. That cheese
should bind it all almost gluing all the
meat to one another. Then I'm going to
go with a shredded blend of like a four
Mexican cheese blend. Get that starting
to melt and then we can start to
transfer this out of the pan and into a
bowl. Also going to add the rest of the
cheese in and just fold it so we can try
and get some stringy action after
they're cooked. You see how it's kind of
like homogeneous? That's actually what
you want. It's going to create a dense
filling so that when you fry it and when
you're done you eat it, it's not like
this hollow thing. Gooey homogeneous
mess. A little bit New York, a little
bit Latin. It's going to be so good.
Now, while that cools, I told you we
were going to be cooking these three
different ways: deep fried, baked, and
air fried. And today, we'll be using the
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Sousie's 100day risk-free trial. Let's
get back into the video. Now, we've got
our dough. Let's unravel it. Not going
to work with all this dough at once. So,
let's cut it in half. Now, I'm going to
flatten a piece out. I'm going to start
rolling it.
I don't need to get it super thin. Then,
what I can do is take a ring mold like
this, punch out two circles.
Now, make sure you get them pretty wide
just so you can fit the ring mold.
Keep moving it around so it doesn't
stick.
Then what we do, we take the rolling pin
and then we thin it out even more into a
nice big circle just like our pasta
dough. Quarter turns to keep the circle
intact.
And this is for if you want to make like
a nice big empanada. I go roughly the
size of my hand. Then we go a little bit
of water that we're just going to wipe
on one half. Then I've got my meat here.
What I want to do is take one of these
ice cream scoops and I want to pack it
in there. Remember, we want density so
that it doesn't sort of collapse. And
then what I'm going to do is take that
and sort of mold it. And then what we
do, fold it over, pick it up, and I'm
going to start at the center where I
kept it met. And then I'm going to take
my finger and press the air out towards
the side where I'm going to pinch it.
And then make my way back towards the
other side, pressing air out until we
get back and we pinch it down here. Now
you can flatten it out. I like to lay it
down and then use the curvature of my
thumbs, sort of seal the meat in there.
Now I have this little dowel here to
thin out and seal the edges. Pasta
cutter with the fluted edge. And we just
go around and you got a beautiful
empanada in which we're going to place
on a sheet tray and it'll go in the
freezer.
Now with that recipe, you get 12
empanadas. And all 12 of the empanadas
are in the freezer right now. That's
doing two things. One, it allows us to
have empanadas in the freezer accessible
to us at all times. And if you're frying
them, that's empanadas in about 5
minutes if your frying oils up to
temperature. And at most if you're air
frying or baking, 25, 30 minutes. But
having them in there means you got
empanadas. The second reason is a thing
called thermal shock. Here's the idea.
Cold dough goes into a hot oven. That
kind of creates a reaction where the
steam inside of the dough evaporates
quickly which puffs the layers of the
dough. That happens usually with any
dough. But now that we're freezing it
and then especially when we deep fry it,
those are like extremes, right? So
that's going to create real thermal
shock. It's going to create a nice
tender flaky dough. That's the science
lesson of the day. Now, today we're
going to bake and air fry our empanadas,
and we're going to wait till some of
them freeze, and I'm going to show you
how they fry up once frozen. First up,
we're going to place two of our
empanadas on a sizzle platter. All we
have to do with these is give them an
egg wash. Try and be a little light with
it. Get those into about a 400 425°
oven. You know, depending on your oven,
it's kind of like not browning. Maybe
jack it up to 425, but try 400. Place it
in the oven for about 25 minutes. We're
just looking for that to get brown and
beautiful. Then we're going to set up
our sousvi for air frying. I've got a
drip pan at the low level and then my
air frying basket set up in the top
shelf of the sousi. I'm going to turn it
on, start my cook. The bottom zone is
going to be empty on the top zone. We're
going to go air fry. I'm going to air
fry at 375
for about 25 minutes. I get that started
now. Get that warming up before these go
in the air fryer basket. We can just
give those a brush with an egg wash as
well. And then we just pop these into
the air fryer and let these cook.
After about 25 minutes, our baked
empanadas are done
as are our air fried and we can rest
them on a wire rack.
Very similar looking
mother. All right, we got to let these
cool off first. In the meantime, we're
going to make a little bodega sauce. Hit
it with a little mayo, a little ketchup,
a little yellow mustard, a little of
that jalapeno juice, another one of
those saone packets. Maybe half.
Touch more ketchup. Looking for that
rosy pink. And take one of our
empanadas, a little shredded lettuce, a
little diced tomato, bodega sauce all
around.
Let's see what our air fryer looks like.
Take some of our lettuce.
Bakes pretty much like a pie dough or a
pie crust. Tender, flaky. You can see
the flakes throughout. And that's
lovely. But I must say, there's just
something about the way the fried ones
come out that's exceptional. And
tomorrow I'm going to show you what it
looks like after a day in the freezer.
Now they're nice and frozen. So, what we
can do now is just package these up for
storage in the freezer and we can
literally come out and grab them
whenever we want. This is the type of
meal prep I'm talking about. So, into
the freezer tomorrow, we'll wrap it up.
Now, here we are the next day or could
be 3 months from now. And we got frozen
empanadas. Just got home from a night
out. I got the munchies. We've already
got our oil heating up, so I'm just
going to add a little bit of the lard to
it just to reinforce some of that
flavor. Once we're up to temperature, we
got empanadas in 5 minutes. Now, because
they're frozen, we need to think about
two things. Both based around the
temperature of the cooking oil. Because
they're frozen, we can't cook them too
high of a heat, otherwise the outside
crust will cook while the inside stays
lukewarm. But we need to get that
temperature of the oil high enough
because they're frozen. And so that's
going to drop the temperature of the oil
once we add them to the oil. And so I
want to cook them around 340 to 350
degrees. So preheating the oil to get it
to around 365 370 should drop that heat
down to 350 once the empanadas hit the
oil. And then all we're going to do is
gently fry them for about 4 5 minutes.
Generally, we're just looking for the
outside to create these bubbles as that
thermal shock, which has intensified
because of the frozen empanadas, hits
the hot oil and all of that dough starts
to flake and kind of bubble up a little
bit as the steam expands the dough.
And once they're golden brown and
crispy, we can remove them and dry them
on a wire rack. Now, do you see what I'm
talking about? When you fry it, there's
almost like these layers of flaky pastry
that develop because of that thermal
shock. They separate more because the
heat difference is more intense. It's a
much more delicate crisp rather than a
crunch. Creates these like air bubbles
in the dough that the baked and airfried
version kind of lack. Let's see how we
did. Smells incredible. You can smell
the achiote. You can see the sort of
flakes and layers of the pastry.
It's amazing. Got this little serving
platter right here. Going to place a
little bed of shredded lettuce and
empanada on top.
A little bit tomato for that bodega
specialty. A little bit of bodega sauce
on top.
That's my chopped cheese empanada. Now,
of course, you could not add the
achiote. You could add picadillo or
brazed beef. Whatever you want to add
inside, that's up to you. It's more of a
framework to make empanadas the way you
want and to have them in the freezer
whenever you want, which I think is a
nice thing to have. Recipes going to be
down in the description. That's all that
we have today. I'll see you next time.
Until then, take care of yourself and go
feed yourself.