The Best Easy Delicious Chicken Empanada Recipe Using Sofrito and Pastry Dough

If you've ever walked through the International Foods aisle of your grocery store and been unsure what to do with any of those new and exotic ingredients, I have a great recipe for Chicken Empanadas for you to try for expanding your palate and experimenting with a great new item that just might become a favorite: Sofrito.

What is Sofrito?

If you are lucky enough to live in an ethnically-diverse area, you might find a whole aisle in your local grocery store dedicated to Hispanic grocery items. One of these items is Sofrito, which is a savory sauce made of tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onions, and a delicious blend of seasonings, which is a base in many Puerto Rican inspired dishes.

Spice haters rejoice, Sofrito, at least the frozen Goya version is not hot to the taste, though it is, to me, a bit on the salty side if you taste it right out of the container. Sofrito is, however, meant to be used as a base, so the saltiness diminished as you combine with other items as intended.

Goya-brand Sofrito is sold in jars or frozen, and my friend who gave me this recipe says that the frozen kind is better than the jarred, still, if you can't find it frozen, go ahead and tried the jarred variety.

[ Can't find Sofrito in your local grocery store? AllRecipes has one for you to make at home.]

Easy and Delicious Chicken Empanadas Recipe Using Store-Bought Pie Crust

In addition to a 28 oz. container of frozen Goya Sofrito, you will need:

3 cups of shredded mexican blend cheese

8 oz block of cream cheese (I used Neufchatel, the lower fat version)

1 jalepeno (I used 1 T. of my dried jalapeno / avocado salsa blend that I made this summer)

4 medium-sized boneless chicken breasts (about 2 lbs)

4 - 5 refrigerated pie crusts (or enough homemade pie crust to make 5 two-crust pies)

Note before you buy:

1) This makes a TON of mini chicken empanadas, but, believe me, they are so delicious that you won't mind having extra on hand. Great for a party! Also, I'm told they freeze well, and I'll update this article after I've frozen and un-frozen a batch to let you know for sure.

2) Don't omit the jalepeno just because you don't like anything spicy. It's a very tiny amount of heat for a large amount of chicken, and it just won't taste the same without it.

3) Having a rolling pin on hand will be helpful for using the extra pieces of pastry to roll together, but if you don't have one, improvise! A full can of soda will do the trick, so will a can of beans, in a pinch. Or you can buy a discount one at your local bargain store. Don't throw away the pastry scraps or you'll have more filling than pastry.

Dinner for Ten for $20 or Less?

These easy Chicken empanadas will feed a crowd. Save money by shopping at your local Save-A-Lot or Price Right for your ingredients! I paid $5 for the chicken, $10 for pie crusts, 99 cents for the cream cheese, and $4 for the shredded cheese, with extras. Jalapenos should be less than $1 each, but you might have to buy a package of them. [Jalapenos dry well, for future reference.]

The Easy, Delicious Empanada Filling

You will need a large stock pan or other big sauce pan. You want to be able to fit the chicken breasts next to each other in the bottom of the pan. Place the pan on the burner, turn to medium high, add about 1 T. olive oil (or whatever oil you have on hand) to lightly brown the chicken breasts on one side.

Flip them over, add the entire container of sofrito, cover the pan, and turn the heat to medium. Cook the chicken until it's white the whole way through and will shred easily with two forks. For me, this took about an hour and a half. You don't want to rush this process, because the chicken will stay very tender as it's cooked in the sofrito liquid.

When the chicken is cooked, allow to cool for about 30 minutes then shred chicken breasts one-by-one using two forks. The best way to do this is to have a cutting board next to the cooking pot. Pull a chicken breast out of the pot, put it on the cutting board, and begin to shred by using one fork to hold the meat and the other to slow pull the meat into long shredded segments.

You might have to experiment a little bit to find the best way for you, but you'll find that the cooked meat shreds very easily. As each breast is shredded, put it back in the pot, filling in the space you left when you removed in, and move on to the next piece.

When all the chicken is shredded, add the rest of the ingredients. There's no need to chop up the cream cheese, just put in the whole block and start stirring. You'll see that the cream cheese will melt down pretty quickly. Add the shredded cheese and the diced jalapeno.

Stir thoroughly then pop the whole pot into the fridge to cool for about 30 minutes. No room in the fridge? No worries. Leave the pot to cool on your countertop, covered, for 45 minutes.

Making the Empanadas

Once your filling is suitably cooled, it's time to assemble the empanadas. First, bring the pie crusts to room temperature by letting the plastic sleeves of pie crust (removed from the box) sit on the table for 15 - 20 minutes. If you don't have help, you might decide to work with only two boxes at a time, since you might need to take a break!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare your trays by spraying with non-stick spray, if desired. (I didn't spray my trays, which are not non-stick, and I didn't have any problems.) You will need a large work surface, so clear off your counter top and clean it really well with an organic cleaning product. Make sure it's dried thoroughly before you begin to work.

Once your pie crusts have sat for the alloted time, open the sleeves and roll out the pie crust on your surface. Using a large drinking glass (or a round cookie cutter, if you have one), cut circles from your pastry. I found it easiest to turn the glass slightly as I removed it to make sure the circle would detach easily from the rest of the dough. The glass I used gave me 8 circles per pie crust. You can make yours slightly smaller or larger, as desired.

Stack the cut circles as you work, and put all the scrap pieces of pastry into a pile. Once you've cut your circles, roll the scraps flat and cut more circles out of these until you run out of pastry. You'll probably find that you can't roll your pastry as thin as the store-bought kind, but don't worry about it! Just do the best you can.

Once you have all your circles, lay out rows and columns of circles. I usually do about 15 - 20 at a time, but do as many as you want. Using a small spoon, add just under 1 Tablespoon of filling onto the circles, leaving space at the edges and half the pastry to fold over. You'll need to experiment to figure out just the right amount to add so that the edges close without squeezing filling out all over the place.

Fold the pastry in half and use your fingers to squeeze the edges closed. Put the finished empanadas on your tray and keep adding until the tray is full. You don't need to leave very much space between the empanadas, just make sure they aren't touching and they will be fine.

Depending on the size of your oven and the size of your trays, you should be able to bake 2 - 4 trays of empanadas at a time. I baked two trays at a time, but if I'd used smaller trays, I would have done more. It doesn't seem to make much difference in baking time if you fill the oven vs. leaving spaces, so I'd just fill it on up.

Bake at 350 degrees until the crust is golden, but make sure you don't burn the bottom. I baked mine for 42 minutes per batch, but the time that yours need may vary, depending on how big you made them. You might want to start the first batch at 20 minutes then check every 5 minutes until they are done, then use the time you reached total to set the timer for the next batch. This method worked well for me.

Allow your empanadas to cool to the touch, then enjoy. Reheating in the microwave the next day takes about 15 seconds per empanadas. These keep very well wrapped in foil in the fridge.

NOTES:

If you put too much filling, you'll see that some of your empanadas leaked a little. Just add less filling to the next batch and break off any burnt cheese patches, if any.

If you want more of a golden surface on the top of your pastry, brush the tops with a little milk or beaten egg white about 5 minutes before the baking time is done. I did this for my first batch but then didn't bother for the rest, since they don't taste any different.

If you want to break the process up into two days work, make the filling one day, chill overnight, then make the empanadas. I found that using the leftover filling the next day was easier because it had solidified a bit and wasn't as messy.

If you decide to lessen this recipe, buy more pie crust that you think you will need. I bought two originally then had to send my fabulous boyfriend out for 3 more boxes the next morning. I still have enough for another pie crust's worth of empanadas in the fridge!

Thanks to Krissy for the inspiration and original recipe!