Making Empanadas

Food for a light meal with my host family in Ushuaia

My Argentinian host was a great cook. She’d raised her large family on food made entirely from scratch and still cooked large midday meals most days, in case any of her five grown children who lived locally (and their partners or friends) might happen to come by. While I lived with them, I benefitted from the hearty lunches—and the great company.

Virginia’s pasta salads and her milanesas and her homemade yogurt were all great, but one of my favorite things she made was empanadas.

A platonic ideal of empanadas from The Kitchn (Photo by Alex Lepe; Food Stylist: Rachel Perlmutter)

Empanadas are a widespread favorite throughout Latin America (and Spain), and there are innumerable local varieties, with plenty of arguments over which kind is the best. The humble hand-held pastry can be fried or baked, palm-sized or as big as your face, dough made from wheat or corn flour, beef or chicken or cheese filling, with raisins or without, with olives or without, spiced with cumin and paprika and oregano or a different mix altogether.

Growing up in Chile, my favorite were fried cheese empanadas: puffy, with gooey white cheese that was the slightest bit sweet. But I’m not picky. Just about any sort of empanada stirs up my nostalgia and my appetite.