Quick and easy low carb beef and chorizo empanadas. Your favorite Argentinian food is back on the table in a low carb and gluten free version.
I have been dreaming of these low carb empanadas for months. They make for a great quick and easy dinner recipe. To make these low carb and gluten free empanadas, I used a variation of fathead dough. There will likely be extra of the filling left over. It is great to eat on its own or to top with eggs and eat for breakfast. We used it to whip up a batch of egg muffins. These empanadas are amazing served with this Quick Balsamic Chimichurri Recipe
In addition to the low carb empanadas, check out some of my other favorite low carb chorizo recipes:
- Roasted Garlic Turnip Puree with Chorizo
- Cheesy Chorizo Breakfast Bake
- Green Chile Chorizo and Chicken Mexican Casserole
- Spicy Sausage Breakfast Taquitos
- Quick Balsamic Chimichurri Sauce
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Beef and Chorizo Low Carb Empanadas
- Yield: 12 empanadas 1x
Ingredients
For the filling
- 8 ounces ground beef
- 8 ounces pork chorizo
- ½ cup diced onion
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- sea salt and black pepper, to taste
- 2 hardboiled eggs, chopped
- 3 green onions, chopped (white and green parts)
- 8 green olives, chopped
For the dough
- 1 ½ cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
- 3 tablespoons cream cheese
- ¾ cup almond flour (Get it here)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning (Get it here)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
For the filling
- To a large skillet, add the ground beef, pork chorizo, onion, garlic, sea salt and pepper. Sauté over medium heat until the meat is cooked through. Drain excess grease and mix in tomato paste. Sauté for an additional 5 minutes.
- Transfer mixture to a bowl, mix in eggs, green onions and olives. Set aside.
For the dough
- In a large mixing bowl, combine mozzarella cheese and cream cheese. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir to combine and microwave 1 additional minute.
- Mix in almond flour, egg, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning, sea salt and black pepper. Mix until all ingredients are well combined.
Combining the two
- Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with a Silpat or parchment paper. Spread the dough out in a thin even layer across one of the sheets.
- Use the rim of a glass to cut circles into the dough. place the circles on the other baking sheet.
- Ball the dough up again, and repeat the process until you have 12 circles.
- Preheat oven to 425°
- Spoon some of the meat mixture onto each circle. Fold dough over the mound of meat and press the edges together. Use a fork to press the edges together.
- Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Notes
Per Serving - 2 Empanadas
Calories: 344 | Fat: 25 g | Protein: 26 g | Carbs: 7.5 net grams | Fiber: 1 g | Net Carbs: 6.5
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 empanadas
Brad says
For the green olives--do you mean olives in brine, like stuffed with pimento?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
I have done it with both non-brined canned green olives and spanish queen olives in brine with pimentos. I like the briny olive best.
Deb says
This looks totally YUMO! Thanks for including the net carb info!
Question on dough prep...what is the microwave temp setting? Would high be to much?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Yes, I did this on high. You really can't go wrong with it. If it is not melted enough, you can put it back in for 30 second to a minute at a time. If it is too melted, it will harden back up.
Julie Chandler says
These look amazing! I don't know what format your pork chorizo comes in but in UK it's usually sold as a big sausage so I assume you finely chop the Chorizo for this recipe? Thanks. P.S. I love your book 🙂
Peace Love and Low Carb says
It is a ground pork chorizo
Laura says
I live in Germany, and I also had to use the hard sausage type chorizo and it was fabulous. Just cook your ground beef as usual, and then add the sliced and cubed chorizo to heat along with your other ingredients. The chorizo gave a wonderful flavor, and the recipe was truly great. I have made them twice! The dough is a little sticky to work with, but I didn't care about the shapes but the flavor. You can't go wrong!
Virginia says
I've heard from Rachel R.'s video that wetting your hands keeps them from sticking to the batter.
Tobbe says
What's the dressing you serve with these on the photos?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
It is a balsamic chimichurri sauce and I will have that recipe up on the site soon
April says
These look AMAZING and perfect for the upcoming football playoff weekends! (Best of luck to your Seahawks going up against the Panthers!!) 🙂
Peace Love and Low Carb says
GO HAWKS!!
Susan says
Can I substitute coconut flour for the almond flour? Love your what you do, thanks
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Coconut flour and almond flour are not an equal exchange. I don't think coconut flour would quite work for this recipe.
Tosh says
Did you use fresh mozzarella or the pre-packaged kind?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Shredded, low moisture mozzarella
Myra says
Fell in love, they are delicious, only I made them a bit bigger, I had six instead of 12. It was the glass size.
Thanks for the recipe
zee says
Do you think I could use shredded Parmesan instead of the shredded mozzarella?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
The mozzarella is essential for the "dough". Parmesan would not make a workable substitution
Zee says
Getting the mozzarella tomorrow! I trust you! I just made the white cheddar sausage muffins and almost cried at how good they were! I've made other low carb almond flour biscuit/muffin recipes and they all tasted gritty and had an awful texture. You really are a talented cook and I look forward to trying more of your recipes!
Teresa says
I tried this yesterday and it was delicious! However I had a very hard time getting the crust thin enough to work well and ended up with a lot more filling than crust. The flavors were great and my husband was impressed, but I need to get better with the "pastry"
Susan says
Just made these and they were fantastic. I used my air fryer to cook them rather than baking!
Thank you!,
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Thanks so much for the kind words. So happy you liked them. I really need to look into getting an air fryer.
Deb says
I made these and have leftovers. How would you suggest re-heating? Oven versus microwave? Oven temp and how long /microwave heat setting and time? Thanks for your input 🙂
BTW I have made 4 of your recipes and they have been BIG hits with my husband.
You are AWSOME!!!
Carlie says
My dough was so very sticky I couldn't proces it. It wouldn't become dough. I used 3 whole mozzarella balls and shredded it myself. Any idea what I did wrong?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
There is likely too much moisture in the cheese that you used.
Terry says
You could save alot of effort and just use a wonton wrapper. Granted it's only a few extra carbs but heck less than 20 for two.
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Two wontons would be really small for 20 carbs. Also, they are not gluten free. The empanadas are 6.5 carbs for two.
Lorea says
Do you think these would freeze and reheat well?
Peace Love and Low Carb says
I haven't tried it. If you do, be sure to come back and let us know how it worked out. 🙂
Helaina says
I froze them and reheated from frozen. They were great!
KetoKitty says
And for a lot of us, 20 grams is what we aim for in a while day! ????
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Not sure where you were seeing 20g?? This recipe is 6.5 per serving for 2 empanadas.
Michele renard says
I was so bummed, these just did not turn out well. I've made a similar dough before, like the 'fat head' and it worked well for previous recipes.
Something about this dough did not go right. It was very sticky, wet and unmanageable. Consistency was more like a clumpy batter than dough. There was no cutting the dough, it just mushed when I tried to cut shapes.
I didn't want to waste all the ingredients, so I par-baked the 'dough' and tried to cut shapes when it was firm. That sort of worked, except the dough was too thick and wouldn't fold well.
The taste was good and we loved the chimichurri sauce, but dang I was so mad about that dough!
I don't know what I did wrong!
Erin swetlik says
What time of mozzarella cheese did you use? My was sadly very sticky but we made it work. Do you have a picture of the bag of cheese you used?
Sarah Garcia says
I have not made these yet but I'm getting ready to I'm just so excited because I love empanadas I put shrimp in mind it is so good. Then I make a salsa. So is that carb count just for the Empanada bread?
Sarah Wallace says
I had a hard time with the dough too, UNTIL I figured out a couple things. A) treat it like pizza dough. Grease your hands, the Silpat, everything. Also, I HIGHLY recommend using shredded chihuahua quesadilla cheese. I like the lactose and gluten free Supremo brand. It's super stretchy and plyable and goes will with the chorizo!
Cici says
I too had a problem with the dough. I used pre shredded low moisture mozzarella & Honeyville almond flour. The dough turned out very, very sticky. I put the rolled out dough in the fridge for a bit before I cut them, hoping it would firm up a bit, but it didn't. I had to wet my hands and my spatula in under to be able to work with the dough. I persisted, though and they ended up coming out delicious. The dough is very, very tasty. Any idea why my dough was so soft and sticky & nag suggestions on how to remedy the situation?
Debbie Smith says
Hi Kyndra: I made these the other night, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. I wrapped leftovers in a paper towel to reheat in the microwave, and they were still great. I served with sour cream and picante sauce. I will definitely do these again! Thanks for all your great recipes.
Peace Love and Low Carb says
Awesome! So happy you enjoyed them. Thanks so much for taking the time to come back and let me know.
Liv says
Gigi your version sounds delicious too!
Sara says
So I took this awesome recipe, did a little tweaking & ran with it. Fried up some bacon, then browned some hamburger in a little of the bacon grease. For the dough seasonings I used some garlic powder, onion powder & Famous Dave's burger seasoning. Added a little shredded cheddar on top of the meat before I baked them. Ended up dipping them in a mix of mayo & low carb BBQ sauce. Delicious!
Kira says
Is there anything that can be used in substitute of almond flour. Nut allergy. Hoping to figure out the sub for all the almond flour recipes at some point in my keto journey.
Paige says
So fabulous! My kids and husband raved about these. I made the recipe as written and did a double batch. I had to 3x the dough to get enough for all the filling I made but nobody was complaining about eating these two nights in a row.
Sarah says
Great recipe, thank you!
I skipped the onion to lower the carb count and it was still delish. Seriously. So good. My partner ate 7 and tried to fight me for more!
The dough seemed sticky to me and I noticed the proportions were different than in other fathead dough recipes I've seen. I added coconut flour to make it drier and then refeigerated the dough, and that made it handle-able. Yay!
But: If I make again, I'll double the dough because I had way more filling than dough!! Also, I'll cut with a bowl, not a cup, to make big empanadas. The little ones are higher carb count because I can't get much meat in there before folding them over. I think more meat:dough will also lower the carb count (2 empanadas made at this size were definitely not meal-sized for me).
Overall I am thrilled that I tried this recipe. It was so so good and relatively speaking quite easy. I've always been intimidated to make empanadas, but I think this is going to be a family favorite recipe from now on. Thank you so much! Your recipes are really great and I appreciate them!!
★★★★★
Veronica Raaff says
These empanadas are so flavorful! Love love love them. My family loved them and will be making them often! Thank you for the recipe.
★★★★★
Rose says
I can't wait to try these. Specially the dough! It opens the low carb door to so many tasty fillings (Jamaican patties, various perogi fillings, English pasties)!
Kay says
About what size circles did you make? Thanks. Need the details.
Jody Juneau says
These were incredible! My husband was over the moon with them! The trick with the dough, as other commenters said, is to put oil on everything. (I used grapeseed oil) Put oil on your hands and on the parchment paper. The minute the dough starts to stick to your hands, immediately put more oil on your hands. The dough is very forgiving. If I pulled too hard and made a hole, a dough "patch" worked fine. I made bigger ones, like the size of Jamaican patties. My husband requested that these be put on the menu once a week!
Anu says
What a great recipe! I've been wanting to make these for ages and finally got around to it last weekend, and it was a real treat. Your version of the fathead dough is perfect and so easy to roll out, it was such a relief as I've had trouble with this in the past. I made the filling without the boiled eggs but other than that I didn't change anything. I think I got the sizes of the circles wrong, though, because I got 14, and even then had over half the filling left over once I'd made the empanadas. No matter though, the filling too is delicious on its own so that half made two substantial meals, while the rest of the empanadas were inhaled by my husband and me throughout the week. Thank you so much for this!
★★★★★
SOFIA FERNANDEZ says
Woow!! Im from Argentina and started Keto a few weeks ago. I will make this asap!
I always do my empanadas with same amount of meat to onions. It may sound odd buy give it a try and im sure u will be sold. So so moist!!!
Steph says
Can I substitute ground turkey or ground chicken to mix with the beef? We don’t care for pork.
Thank you, Steph
Kyndra Holley says
You can use any ground me you prefer
Nicole J says
These are AMAZING! My kids scarfed them down! My only comment is double the dough re I’ve so you can use all the meat. These are to die for!
★★★★★
Jennie says
A little hard to work with the dough but totally worth it. They are delicious! Thanks!
★★★★★
Kristi says
This was my first attempt at a fat head dough recipe. The empanadas were tasty and easy to make,. We doubled the recipe because our meat was in one pound packages. I made FOUR rounds of dough and still had meat left over. The dough was sticky as I was mixing it by hand, but as it cooled down, it became more "dough-like." The empanadas don't spread though so we got as many on the pan as would fit to save time on the oven running. I would definitely make this again. And I can certainly see variations in my future - now that I've tried the recipe as written. Ham and Cheese Empanadas? Pepperoni Pizza Empanadas! And yes, I'm loving my first attempt at a fat head dough!
★★★★★
Kristi says
And now I've made it twice. This time, we just started with a quadruple recipe. I should have remembered to let it cool though. We made it with the same seasonings, but used a filling of diced pepperoni, shredded mozzarella and a small amount of spaghetti/marina sauce to hold it together. Very tasty!
Jenny says
This was delicious! We made it tonight. Our first time making a "fathead" type dough. It was super easy (although my fingers are still sore from combining the hot cheese with the other ingredients! LOL) and really, really good. The dough was a little salty for me, so I don't know if I added too much or what. But we'll definitely do it again and experiment with different fillings!
I'm just over 3 months post-bariatric surgery, so two of these were perfect for me.. Great stuff!
★★★★★