November 22 2019 recipe & photo by Clara Gonzalez![Clara Gonzalez]()
, nutritional review by Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE![Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE]()
in Recipes, Appetizer, Bread, Snack
, nutritional review by Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE
in Recipes, Appetizer, Bread, Snack Low carb beef empanadas with dip
Tasty, meat-filled turnovers from Latin America get a low carb twist. The name empanada literally means "wrapped in bread," but here, the wrapping is made of keto-friendly almond flour, eggs, and ricotta cheese. Filled with a tasty ground beef mix and served with a dipping sauce, these empanadas will have everyone saying "Gracias" and "Uno más, por favor."
USMetric
servingservings
Ingredients
Empanada dough
- 1¼ cups (5 oz.) 300 ml (140 g) almond flour
- 1 tsp 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ½ tsp cream of tartar
- 1 tsp 1 tsp xanthan gum
- 2 2 egg, dividedeggs, divided
- 2 tbsp 2 tbsp butter, at room temperature
- 2 tbsp 2 tbsp ricotta cheese
- 1 tsp 1 tsp heavy whipping cream (for egg wash)
Filling
- 3 tbsp 3 tbsp olive oil
- ¼ (1 oz.) ¼ (28 g) red onion, finely choppedred onions, finely chopped
- 1 1 garlic clove, mincedgarlic cloves, minced
- ¼ lb 110 g ground beef
- ¼ cup 60 ml tomato sauce
- ¼ (1 oz.) ¼ (30 g) red bell pepper, mincedred bell peppers, minced
- 1 (7 oz.) 1 (200 g) zucchini, finely diced
- 1 tsp 1 tsp salt, or to taste
- ½ tsp ½ tsp pepper
- 1 1 egg, hard boiled and finely choppedeggs, hard boiled and finely chopped
Dipping sauce
- ½ cup 120 ml sour cream
- ½ tsp ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp ½ tsp salt
- 1 1 fresh jalapeño, choppedfresh jalapeños, chopped
- 1⁄3 oz. (9 tbsp) 10 g (150 ml) fresh cilantro
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Making low carb simple
Instructions
For the filling
- Heat the oil over medium heat. Stir in the onion and cook while stirring until it turns translucent.
- Add in the garlic and ground beef, stirring until meat browns.
- Pour in the tomato sauce, add bell pepper, zucchini, salt, and pepper. Stir and cover. Simmer for 3 minutes.
- Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste if needed. Remove from the heat. Mix in the minced egg and set aside.
Empanadas
- In a mixing bowl, whisk to combine almond flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, and xanthan gum.
- Add the butter, ricotta, and half of the eggs.
- Using the hook attachment of a mixer, knead until it becomes a smooth dough ball (about 2 minutes).
- Remove from the mixer, wrap in plastic film and let it rest in the refrigerator for an hour.
- Cut parchment paper into squares, roughly 7” x 7” (18 x 18 cm).
- Once the dough is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator, cut them into pieces, and form each piece into a ball.
- Press each ball between two pieces of parchment paper using a cutting board (or extend using a rolling pin) to make a flat disc that is 5” (13 cm) in diameter.
- Peel off the top layer of paper and reuse for the other balls, leaving the discs on the bottom paper. The dough is softer and more delicate than the traditional empanadas dough, so you have to handle it more carefully. Set the discs aside.
- Split the remaining egg into yolk and white. Set the white aside. Whisk the yolk and heavy cream together. Set it aside too.
Assembly
- To fill the empanadas, scoop a tablespoon of the filling into the center of each of the dough discs.
- Fold each over, using help from the parchment paper, to form a half-moon. Press the edges to seal. You have to be delicate in handling these and may need to fix any cracks in the dough gently. Don’t worry though; the empanadas will need to have some holes to let the steam out.
- Once they are all assembled, pierce once in the center with a toothpick. Paint each with the egg/cream wash.
- Arrange on a baking tray on top of a wire rack lined with parchment paper.
- In a preheated oven, bake at 300 ºF (150 ºC) for 20 minutes, or until they turn a light golden brown. You really need to keep an eye on them as almond flour is a bit unpredictable and may go from golden to burnt in little time.
Sauce
- For the dipping sauce, blend everything with an immersion blender to your preferred consistency. Serve.
You may be able to use glucomannan for this recipe.
We have not tested this recipe with sour cream or cream cheese in place of the ricotta. I would think that the cream cheese would be a more viable substitute, that there may be too much moisture in the sour cream.
Thank you for your feedback!
We have not tested this recipe with a substitute for the ricotta cheese.
So glad you enjoyed them!
I made them with cream cheese and they were fantastic.
Hi, Cheryl! The default serving size is 4. The number of empanadas will depend on the size you make. So, I would take the number you make an simply divide by 4.