During the winter months, I always find myself gravitating towards comfort foods. Endless bowls of warm soup and baked chicken dishes have been giving me my fill but I've also been warming up to a new delicacy I never really grew up on—empanadas. In my youth, I always enjoyed the occasional dumpling, or stromboli in college. I even once checked out a library cookbook that showed you how to make all kinds of stuffed-dough favorites.

As the pandemic started to take over normal life, I think a lot of people began craving food that tasted good, and empanadas took a place at the table. In the past six months or so, this Mexican comfort dish has been popping up and I've taken a liking to it. Recently I attended an event that had a Mexican food truck and I had to try their empanadas. They were delicious! I decided I needed to give them a try in my own kitchen and Abbot's Butcher's Plant-Based Chorizo was the perfect star for this dish. I followed their recipe, which you can view here. This recipe was super easy to follow and came together in mere minutes.

Being an Italian girl, I've never been great with spices, so I was a little worried about the addition of chiles, but honestly they gave the meat so much flavor. I loved that the filling could all be made in the skillet, like a one-dump dish. The natural notes of the paprika and chili powder in the meat really came out as the "chorizo" cooked.

When it came to the dough, I used a store bought can of pizza dough and it worked pretty well. I did add flour to the surface I rolled the dough on to make it easier to handle. With one box, I was able to make eight empanadas. There was plenty of filling left over but I saved it to make lettuce wraps or sandwiches as another meal.

I thoroughly enjoyed the aromatic flavors of this recipe, and it is one I look forward to adding to my dinner rotation. What I loved about this dish is that you can make the filling unique to your flavor preference. If you're not a fan of corn or chiles, add in a canned vegetable that you prefer. If you want to add more spice, add a jalapeno pepper. The filling variations are limitless. Serve this up as an appetizer at your next party or for a new dinner favorite.

Abbot's Butcher also sells Ground Beef and Chopped Chick'n. You can visit their website for tons of great recipes. 

If you make this, feel free to share it with us on any of our socials. Stay tuned next month for another delicious bake. Happy Baking until next time!