This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
Waking up in the morning has never been more exciting than when I have easy Breakfast Empanadas to look forward to.
These baked breakfast empanadas are filled with a chorizo, potato, and scrambled egg mixture and enclosed in the best pastry ever (it’s an insanely easy pastry, promise). Sprinkle a little cheese on top of the filling for the most flavorful filling ever.
They taste sort of like a breakfast burrito taken up a few notches. Maybe even a breakfast burrito combined with a savory toaster strudel… they’re awesome.
Feel free to get creative with this recipe if you’d like. You could try adding in some breakfast sausage, crumbled bacon, or diced ham instead of the chorizo. The best part about this empanada filling is it’s super customizable!
Make sure to check out the pink tip box just below for tons of baking tips for perfect breakfast empanadas.
How to Make Breakfast Empanadas
What are Breakfast Empanadas?
They’re just like regular empanadas, but filled with delicious breakfast ingredients like scrambled eggs and chorizo! It’s like a breakfast burrito but instead of tortillas, the filling is enclosed in buttery flaky 5-minute pastry!
Breakfast Empanadas Filling Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- Chorizo
- Seasonings: salt, ground black pepper, cayenne, paprika, and onion powder
- Cooked potato (could also use leftover roasted potato or mashed potato)
- Yellow onion
- Red bell pepper and green bell pepper
- Garlic cloves
- Eggs
- Shredded Mexican cheese (or cheddar cheese would work great too!)
Instructions for how to make empanadas:
- Make the dough. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the water and butter, heating until butter has melted. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Pour a little of the warm butter mixture in and mix with your fingertips to make a wet paste. Pour in remaining liquid, and work the dough with your hands until you get a wet, oily dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Make the filling. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chorizo and cook until done. Remove chorizo from the pan. Measure out seasoning blend. Add potatoes, onion, and bell peppers and stir. Cook until potatoes and peppers are soft and onions are translucent. Lastly, add garlic and half of the seasoning blend. Remove vegetable mixture to bowl with chorizo. In the same skillet, scramble eggs along with shredded cheese and remaining half of the seasoning mixture
- Assemble the empanadas. Tear off golf-ball sized pieces of the chilled dough and roll into balls. On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll out the balls into circles. Place 2 heaping tablespoons of filling in the center of each dough circle. Brush a small amount of egg wash lightly over one half edge’s border. Fold dough over to create a half-moon shape and press edges firmly to seal. Crimp edges with the back of a fork.
- Bake. Use a pastry brush to gently brush the empanadas with an egg wash and bake until golden brown.
How long to bake empanadas?
I baked mine for 20 minutes, until golden brown. If you make empanadas that are smaller or bigger than the size created in the recipe, make sure to adjust the baking time accordingly.
What to serve with baked Breakfast Empanadas:
- Green or red salsa
- Pico de gallo
- Freshly sliced avocado
- Fresh orange juice
How to store empanadas:
Refrigerate leftovers either plastic wrapped or stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Reheat in a 400°F oven until the crust has re-crisped and the filling is warmed through, about 5 to 7 minutes.
How to make Breakfast Empanadas ahead of time:
These truly make the best handheld grab-and-go breakfast! The empanada dough can be wrapped in plastic and stored in the fridge for one day before using. The filling can also be cooked and stored in an airtight container in the fridge for a day. The assembled unbaked empanadas can also be covered in plastic and stored in the fridge for up to 2 days, no need to change the baking time.
How to freeze Breakfast Empanadas:
Freeze the sheet of unbaked empanadas until solid, then transfer into a freezer bag. Frozen empanadas will keep for up to three months and can be baked straight from the freezer. Add a few extra minutes to the cooking time.
Fully baked empanadas can also be frozen, though they lose a bit of their flaky texture. To prevent freezer burn, wrap them individually in plastic wrap before placing in a freezer bag or airtight container. To reheat, unwrap as many empanadas as you want and warm in a 300°F oven or toaster oven, about 10 minutes.
More empanada recipes:
More breakfast recipes:
For the dough:
-
1
cup
water
-
1 1/2
sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter
-
2 3/4
cups
(349 grams) all-purpose flour
-
2
teaspoons
salt
-
Pinch
of paprika
For the filling:
-
2
teaspoons
olive oil
-
1/2
pound
chorizo,
casings removed
-
1
teaspoon
salt
-
1
teaspoon
ground black pepper
-
¼
teaspoon
cayenne
-
¼
teaspoon
paprika
-
½
teaspoon
onion powder
-
1
small potato,
peeled and diced
-
1
large yellow onion,
chopped
-
1/2
medium red bell pepper,
cored, seeded, and chopped
-
1/2
medium green bell pepper,
cored, seeded, and chopped
-
2
garlic cloves,
diced
-
5
large eggs,
beaten
-
1/2
cup
shredded Mexican blend cheese
For the egg wash:
-
1
egg
-
3
tablespoons
water
For the dough:
-
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the water and butter, heating until butter has fully melted. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and paprika and make a well in the center. Pour a little of the warm butter mixture in and mix with your fingertips to make a wet paste. Pour in remaining liquid, and work the dough with your hands until you get a wet, oily dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
-
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
For the filling:
-
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chorizo and cook, stirring to break up any large pieces, until done, about 10 minutes. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon into a large bowl and set aside.
-
While chorizo is cooking, measure out seasoning blend in a small bowl and set aside. You will use half of the blend for the veggie mixture and reserve the other half to add to the scrambled egg mixture.
-
Once chorizo has been removed from pan, continuing at medium heat, add potatoes, onion, and bell peppers. Cook, stirring often, until potatoes and peppers are soft and onions are translucent, about 15 minutes. Lastly, add garlic and half of the seasoning blend. Remove vegetable mixture to bowl with chorizo.
-
In the same skillet over medium-low heat, scramble eggs along with shredded cheese and remaining half of the seasoning mixture. Leave the scrambled eggs a little more wet than you normally would as they will cook a bit in the oven. Remove from heat.
To assemble:
-
Tear off golf-ball sized pieces of the chilled dough and roll into balls. On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll out the balls into 1/4-inch thick, 5-inch diameter circles. Once your dough has been rolled out, place 2 heaping tablespoons of filling in the center of each dough circle, beginning with 1 tablespoon of scrambled eggs on the bottom, and topping with 1 tablespoon of chorizo/veggie mixture. Fold dough over to create a half-moon shape and press edges firmly to seal. Crimp edges with the back of a fork.
-
Place empanadas onto the prepared baking sheet. Lightly beat together the egg and water. Brush the empanadas gently with the egg wash.
-
Bake empanadas until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.
-
Refrigerate leftovers either plastic wrapped or stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. You can also freeze cooked empanadas plastic wrapped in a resealable freezer bag or airtight container for up to 3 months. To reheat, unwrap as many empanadas as you want and warm through in a 300°F oven or toaster oven for about 10 minutes.
This post was originally published in 2012 and updated in 2022 with new photos and recipe improvements. Photos by Joanie Simon.
June 2022 Baking Challenge
This recipe was the June 2022 selection for our monthly baking challenge! Every month you can join the challenge by baking the recipe and snapping a photo for a chance to win prizes! Learn more about my monthly baking challenges here. Check out everyone’s empanadas:
Yum! Made for a breakfast meeting at work. Everyone loved.
is the pastry supposed to be very liquidy? It came out more like runny pancake batter and was very sticky. we had to add quite a bit more flour to even get it to form a ball.
Hi Damon! This pastry should be dough-like, pliable and easily rolled out. Did you possibly mis-measure an ingredient? How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure ingredients (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time. I hope this helps, Damon, and I hope you were able to enjoy these empanadas! Happy baking!
I have rotisserie chicken leftover and thought I would make Empanadas with it. Would I make the filling the same way except substitute chicken for the Chorizo?
Thanks,
Patsy Roman
Hi Patsy! Yes, that’s correct – just swap out the meats! That should be delicious 🙂 Let us know how it goes!
If I make these ahead of time and store them in the fridge, do I do the egg wash right before baking or do I do that before I store them in the fridge? I want to do this as I stored the baked leftovers in the freezer and reheated them and I was disappointed in the loss of flakiness in the dough as was listed in the comments. So I want to maintain the flakiness, so which is the best time to do the egg wash?
Thank you so much for your help! By the way, this is an AWESOME recipe and the dough was SUPER EASY!!!
Hi Kelly! It shouldn’t make a huge difference either way, but I would recommend egg washing right before baking for best results. I’m so happy to hear that you loved these empanadas!! 🙂 Happy baking!
Wonderful! Love that there are plenty of extra to freeze, they’ll make great grab-and-go breakfasts
Yay! So glad you enjoyed these empanadas, Emily!
Love the dough so much! Very light and flakey yet moist! Hold shape well too. Eggs seem to not be enough for all of the dough. I ended up filling some dough with left over spaghetti sauce and shredded cheese. Both fillings tasted amazing with the dough!
Excited to make these for our son and his large group of golfers. Grab and go breakfast!
I made the breakfast empanadas and they were so good. The family loved them. But it was definitely a challenge to make with the limited space in my kitchen. Things I learned…a bench scraper is very handy, keep the dough chilled, and use plenty of flour. I made mine larger than the 5” and if one got a tear in the dough I just patched it with another piece of dough. They definitely took some practice.
Delicious!
So happy you enjoyed these empanadas, Taylor!
Delicious! I was happy they are so customizable because of some dietary restrictions.
So happy you enjoyed these empanadas, Kelly!
These breakfast empanadas were easy to make and delicious! The crust is buttery and flaky.
Yay! So happy to hear that you enjoyed these empanadas so much, Christina!
Seriously incredible recipe!!!! I did add black beans (1 full can that I drained and rinsed) to the mixture. Perfect breakfast!!
Sounds delicious, Bethany! So happy you enjoyed your empanadas!
I made these and the beef empanadas on the same day. These were a crowd favorite (which I was concerned about because my hand slipped a little with the cayenne pepper). Will make these again
So thrilled that you and your guests enjoyed these breakfast empanadas so much, Karen!!
These were so good! I made a double batch and froze half for a future meal.
So happy to hear that you loved these empanadas, Rebecca!!
These empanadas are delicious! The dough is nice and flaky and the filling is good enough to eat on its own. I did find that this recipe made about two times the filling amount needed, so just something to keep in mind if you make them.
Hi Jennifer! So happy you enjoyed these empanadas! And good note regarding the filling! 🙂
This one might be our fave! Just like Tessa’s other empanada recipes, it is very customizable. I didn’t want to use chorizo, but I did have some leftover spicy grilled chicken that I cut up for these. I didn’t have a 5-inch cookie cutter, so I used the plastic lid from a mascarpone cheese container, which is 4 1/2 inches in diameter. It worked great! I brought the frozen empanadas to my parents’ house to bake for Fathers’ Day brunch, baked for 23 – 24 minutes from frozen, and everyone loved them. Guess what else we had — Mixed Berry Empanadas! Another winner!
Great tips, Becky! So happy you enjoyed these empanadas, and as you say, they are so easily customized to your preferences! Also happy you enjoyed the mixed berry empanadas! 🙂
Excellent for breakfast
Yay! So excited you enjoyed these empanadas, Fithria!
These were delicious and the recipe was incredibly easy to follow!
Yay! So happy to hear that, Jamey!!
This is a new favorite in this house! I did make these more kid friendly by using a traditional breakfast sausage. I will be keeping a steady supply in the freezer!
Hi Melissa! Sounds like a great substitute for kids! So glad everyone loved these!!
Delicious and easy, this recipe was perfect for my first time making empanadas!
Hi Crissey! So happy to hear you enjoyed these empanadas!!
Wow! Really love the mix of ingredients / flavors! Then, get it all wrapped in the wonderfully buttery, flaky dough – *chef’s kiss* lol
Definitely a fan, and I love that they can be prepped ahead of time.
Yay! So happy you loved these empanadas, Josh!!
I love the texture of the dough and how it adds to the overall experience of the empanadas – it doesn’t outshine the filling.
I’m vegetarian, so substituted the chorizo for firm tofu and they turned out beautifully.
Hi PJ! So happy to hear you enjoyed these empanadas – and what a great idea to make them vegetarian with those great tweaks!
These were the family favorite!! I almost didn’t get a picture of them for the challenge because they were going so fast!
We love to hear that, Karen!! 🙂
I enjoyed the process of making these! They were easier than I expected and I loved how the dough turned out!
Yay!! So happy you enjoyed making these empanadas, Kaija!!
Loved these. I will be making them regularly
So happy to hear that, Kelsey!!
Can you assemble the empanadas the night before and just bake in the morning? Or is it best to assemble them right before baking? Thanks!
Hi Christopher! The assembled unbaked empanadas can be refrigerated for up to 2 days ahead of baking! Just make sure to cover them well with plastic wrap, so they don’t dry out or soak in any unwanted flavors from the fridge! Happy baking 🙂
Dough and filling super easy to make and delicious. The empanadas themselves take more time (and patience) to put together.
Totally worth it and so delicious.
Yay! So happy to hear you enjoyed these empanadas, Kiersten!
Loved this recipe! I had tried a freezer breakfast sandwich recipe before, but it was quite bland. The spice blend for the eggs was great- just enough to wake up your mouth! Thanks Tessa!
Wonderful recipe! I need to say that I have never had success with using butter in a pie crust, so I was a little nervous about it, but found that this dough is surprisingly forgiving! I messed up the amount of flour, sifting only 2 1/4 cups, but after adding all the liquid, checked out the recipe, realized my mistake and added in the remaining 1/4 cup of flour. The crust turned out perfectly flaky, delicious, and the edges stayed crimped! I found that I needed to chill the filled pies before baking, and that resulted in a beautifully toasty brown crust. I had tried a different freezer breakfast sandwich recipe, which was okay – but this runs rings around that one- especially the blend of spices in the eggs!! I am sooo happy I found your website! Look forward to learning lots more about baking!
Woohoo – sounds like a super successful breakfast empanada, Anne!! So happy you loved these 🙂
A little kick but hit at our breakfast gathering.
So happy these empanadas were a hit, Cherish!! 🙂
Hello, Tessa! Breakfast is my favorite meal, so can never have 2 many recipes. I really want to try this recipe. However, I know myself, and I am not a dough-making gal. What could I sub? Phyllo dough? Thanks, Cheryl
Hi Cheryl! This is a super easy dough, I promise! There are not really any ready-make doughs on the market (at least here in America) that would quite compare to this dough’s delicious buttery flavor and perfectly flaky consistency. I believe in you to make this dough 🙂 (did I talk you into it? hehe) If you reeeeeeally don’t want to make the dough, you could try a pre-packaged puff pastry instead. I think that would taste better than phyllo – but that would likely work too. Either way, let us know what you think when you give them a try 🙂
I made these today and they were so easy to make! I had no idea how easy it would be to make the dough. The directions are clear and the flavor is amazing. I meal prepped for breakfast this week. You could totally make a lot of variations easily and just keep the dough recipe.
Yay! So thrilled to hear this, Heather!!
So delicious! Made the dough yesterday and stuffed them with bacon, potatoes, soft scrambled egg, veggies and cheese! So very good and I did it assembly line style – rolled out the dough first, then filled, closed and baked! It was much faster that way!
That sounds like the perfect way to make them, Kelly!! So happy you enjoyed them!
Hi… I have made this recipe several times and it’s delicious. I use soy chorizo and these are so yummy and everyone loves them. The pastry is light and flaky yet strong enough to hold the filling.
Thank you!
So happy to hear you love this recipe, Catherine!
I made these for a potluck last year when we did a chili day and everyone wants them again! Delicious. Thank you for sharing!
I agree that this pastry dough looks fabulous! I like how thin you got it. I look forward to trying this out!
We love, love, love empanadas. These looks fantastic. Will be making this weekend!
Acabo de descubrir tu blog y aqui me quedo…menuda empanadilla!
These sound so good Tessa!! I get so bored with my usual breakfasts, this is a great way to switch things up 🙂