Freezer-friendly and easy Spicy Sausage Empanadas! These hand pies are spicy, creamy, cheesy, and sure to be a hit at your game day spread!

Sausage Empanadas

Game day is all about the snacks and drinks for me. 🙂 I’m not really into the actual game, but I’m all for making a party out of it!

And these Spicy Sausage Empanadas are the perfect snack for any kind of party, just like this Sausage Cheese Dip.

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Try these Spicy Sausage Empanadas | Take Two Tapas | #TheFlavorBender #Empanadas #Tapas #Spicy #Sausage

How to make sausage empanadas

These from scratch empanadas are filled with a spicy sausage and cheese filling, and they are really easy to make. I used a from scratch empanada dough that comes together easily.

If you don’t want to make the dough yourself, you can substitute with a store-bought pie crust in a pinch too. I made my empanada dough with butter here, but you can use lard as well if you like.

There will be a difference in taste, but regardless of how you make the dough, the star in this recipe is definitely the spicy sausage filling!

I cooked some spicy ground sausage meat (I removed the casings from the sausages), added some extra seasoning, cream and mixed it all up with a generous amount of cheese.

The result? A glorious, spicy, creamy, cheesy, meat filling! This filling is so good, I made extra and made grilled cheese sandwiches with the leftovers! 🙂

The dough for the spicy sausage empanadas is simple! | Take Two Tapas | #TheFlavorBender #Empanadas #Tapas #Spicy #Sausage

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Can you freeze them?

These spicy sausage empanadas are freezer-friendly too. So you can make them ahead of time and freeze for up to a whole month. Plus, you can fry them directly from frozen.

As long as you freeze them properly (lay out the empanadas in a single layer, with some space between each so that they don’t stick together), you’ve got a delicious snack on hand, ready to go, whenever you fancy!

And since we love spicy food, we pair these spicy sausage empanadas with sriracha sauce or spicy chili sauce.

A creamy ranch dipping sauce, or a sweet chili sauce, or a cheesy dipping sauce would also be perfect for these spicy sausage empanadas.

Spicy Sausage Empanadas

Freezer-friendly and easy Spicy Sausage Empanadas! These hand pies are spicy, creamy, cheesy, and sure to be a hit at your game day spread!

5 from 13 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Best Tapas and Appetizers

Cuisine: Mexican

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 5

Total Time: 15

Servings:

Author: Jennifer

Ingredients

Sausage filling:

½ small red onion chopped finely
¾ lb spicy sausages casings removed
½ tbsp chili pepper flakes or less
¼ cup cream
1 ½ cups shredded cheese I used Monterey Jack

For the empanadas:

1 recipe for empanada dough
2 cups canola oil

Instructions

Sausage filling

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a skillet.
When the oil is heated, add the onions and saute until they are softened.
Add the sausage meat and pepper flakes and cook making sure to break the sausage into pieces while stirring so that it isn’t one big clump of meat.
Once the sausage is cooked, taste and season with extra salt if necessary.
Add the cream, and stir to combine.
Remove the cooked sausage from the heat and let it cool down to room temperature.
Stir the cheese into the cooled down sausage filling. Set aside until ready to make empanadas.

Empanadas

Make the dough and chill for an hour.
Roll out the chilled empanada dough until it’s about 2 – 3 mm thick.
Cut 3.5 inch circles from the rolled out dough.
Fill the middle of each circle with a little sausage filling.
Dab the edges of the empanada dough circle with water and fold over the pastry to seal in the filling.
Press down the edges to seal, and use a fork to crimp the edges.
Place the empanadas in one layer, on a baking tray.
Keep it covered with plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to fry, IF you will be frying these within 24 hours.

To fry from fresh

Heat remaining oil to deep fry the empanadas to 350°F / 180°C.
Fry the empanadas in the hot oil, 2 minutes per side, until the pastry turns a golden brown.
Drain excess oil by placing the fried empanadas on paper towels or newspaper.

To fry from frozen

Heat remaining oil to deep fry the empanadas to 350°F / 180°C.
Fry the frozen empanadas for about 4 minutes per side, until the pastry turns golden brown (maybe slightly darker).
Drain excess oil by placing the fried empanadas on paper towels or newspaper.
Enjoy while hot with dipping sauce!

Notes

TO FREEZE – cover the tray of empanadas with plastic wrap and keep the baking tray in the freezer until the empanadas are frozen (a few hours). Place the frozen empanadas in a container (freezer friendly), until needed.

*If you like this recipe, leave a comment and rate it with some stars!!!

Nutrition

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22 Comments

Wow! These sound so good! Looks like I know what were having Saturday for dinner!

What a fun appetizer!! Thanks for sharing!!

WOW!!! I love this!!! I love that has this spicy combo of flavors, I just like empanadas, LOL! YUM!

Oh my do these sound incredible!!! A perfect party food! The spicy sausage filling sounds so so good!

These are fun easy bites, freezer friendly too? Even better!!

These look so delicious! I love that you can make these ahead and freeze them, that makes entertaining so easy!

I love the sound of these. Yummy & fun to eat!

I love everything about this finger food! Sausage is always a favorite of ours especially when we want a punch of flavor in a small bite.

Empanadas are one of my favorite foods! I can’t wait to make these this weekend!