Spicy Chicken Empanadas

Verdict: Success

Neighbor-worthy

This recipe is one of my own after having totally ripped off a bunch of similar recipes over the years so there is no trackable tweaking here.  There are however cheats.  It is/was a Tuesday night and I am/was too tired to make my own dough which I usually do for these.  The same goes for the salsa in the recipe.  Corners are cut on this post.  I'll tell you how I do those another time.

The recipes I have done before have called for frying the empanadas, which obviously makes them taste awesome, but it really isn't necessary.  I bake them.

I LOVE these empanadas and if you haven't caught on yet, I love spicy food.  If you do not, then leave out the jalapeños and only use a little hot sauce.  If you really do not, then skip the hot sauce all together.


Serve these with nachos, sour cream and my guacamole.  Or yours, whatever...

Ingredients:

1/2 rotisserie chicken meat stripped from bones (about 3 cups worth)

2 jalapeño peppers diced

1 red bell pepper chopped

1 cup low-fat shredded cheddar

1 yellow onion chopped

just short of 1 tablespoon cumin

2  tablespoons canola oil

4 oz fat free cream cheese

1 cup home made salsa  (recipe DOES NOT follow today)

home made dough (recipe DOES NOT follow today)

salt
pepper

flour for sprinkling

water

hot sauce (Franks Red Hot or Cholula recommended)

+ store bought (freshest, non-processed as possible) salsa

+ 2 ready-made pie crusts
+ olive oil

Pre-heat your oven to 400°

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over Medium-high heat.  When the oil smokes, lower the heat to Medium and add the onion and bell pepper and season with salt and pepper.  When veggies get soft, add the chicken followed by the salsa.  Mix well with a wooden spoons and cook for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Throw the chicken mix into a large bowl and add the jalapeño, cheese, hot sauce, cumin and cream cheese and mix well.

Lie your pie crusts on a work surface and lightly flour.  Using a cookie cutter (or in my case, as a non-cookie cutter owner, something round you can cut around--a glass or a lid of some sort) cut out circles from the dough (5" diameters or so).  Use the leftover scraps to roll and cut out additional circles.  Try to get 10.

Spoon a tablespoon and a half of the mixture you made onto one side of the circle, but not to the edge.  Dip your fingers in water and lightly wet the outside of the circle all the way around.  Fold the empty side over the mound of chicken to line up with the other side.  Using a fork, press down on the sides to seal the edges of your creation.  Lie on a cookie sheet sprayed with a vegetable spray (like PAM) and repeat the process.  Reserve any leftover mix and put on top of nachos or something.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Brush with some olive oil as these are dryer than the greasy one that come from oil.

Notes:  I will definitely do these again when I fry them but I am trying to stay away from fried foods as much as I can.  It's easier to do with recipes like this where it tastes so good without it.

Tweaks:

I baked these instead of frying them as is the (mostly) traditional method.


Cheats:

I used store bought salsa instead of making my own.

I used ready-made pie crusts instead of making my own dough.

Confession:

I am pretty sure my motivation for not making my own salsa and dough was mostly 'cause I didn't want to write it all out for a looong post.

Send me some challenges!  themaniccheater@gmail.com.